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MR. TILTON’S WORKS. 


The Bell Roland. With other Early Poems. 8vo. 
Price, $1.50. 

Thou and I : a Lyric of Human Life. With other 
poems. 8vo. Price, $1.50. 

Swabian Stories. (A book of legendary and other 
tales, in verse.) 8vo. Price, $1.50. 

Tempest-Tossed. A Romance. New edition, revised 
and corrected. Price, $1.50. 

R. WORTHINGTON, 

Publisher , 

770 Broadway, N. Y. 


/ 





















THEDORE .TILTON . 









Tempest-Tossed 


% Homaiu*. 


BY 

THEODORE TILTON. 

u 




NEW YORK: 

R. WORTHINGTON, 
770 Broadway. 

1883. 


Copyright, 1883, 

By THEODORE TILTON. 


PRESS OF J. J. LITTLE & CO., 

NOS. 10 TO 20 ASTOR PLACE, NEW Y03X. 


FRANCIS IX MOULTON, 

WHO HAS ILLUSTRATED IN LIVING REALITY, 

BETTER THAN THIS FICTION CAN DO BY A SHADOWY IMAGE, 
TIIE RICH FAITH AND FAIR GRACES OF A FRIENDSHIP 
TENDER, BRAVE, AND TRUE, 


&lns Volume is Jratmtalljr jkbicatcb 

BY HIS EARLY CLASS-MATE AND LIFE-LONG FRIEND, 


THEODORE TILTON. 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Prologue 9 

I.— The Trial Trip 11 

II. — Fighting against Fate 25 

III. — Breaking the News 38 

IV. — Closer than a Brother 50 

V. — The Needle in the Haystack 61 

VI. — In Three Parts of the World 80 

VII. — Adrift 83 

VIII. — Dr. Vail’s Journal 110 

IX. — Mary Vail’s Journal 121 

X. — The Caged Bird 132 

XI. — A Glimpse Through a Spy-Glass 149 

XII. — Golgotha 168 

XIII. — Founded on a Rock I84 

XIV. — Green Pastures and Still Waters 198 

XV. — The Under World 214 

XVI.— Out of the Jaws of Death 224 

XVII. — Hope Deferred 237 

XVIII.— Narcissa 349 

XIX.— Face to Face 263 

XX,— Heart to Heabt 285 

7 


8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXI.— Interchange 310 

XXII.— A Sailor’s Yarn 330 

XXIII. — An Outstretched Hand 350 

* XXI Y.— Revolt 359 

XXV. — Embarkation .* 373 

XXVI. — Agatha 398 

XXVII.— Surprise 410 

XXVIII. — Battle 434 

XXIX. — Exit and Entrance 449 

Epilogue 469 


PROLOGUE. 


UT of sight of land, rolling on the sea, and glittering 



V_y in the daybreak, lay a dismasted ship — a burnt, 
charred hulk that had just escaped total destruction by 
lightning and hurricane. 

No captain was at the helm ; no sailor on deck ; no 
boat hanging in the davits ; no sign of life on board ; 
nothing but a ganglion of fallen rigging that lay in wild 
heaps around three stumps of masts. 

The absent boats suggested a hope that, through the 
mercy of God, the ship’s company had escaped with their 
lives. 

So had the ship herself, for she lived. 

Her name too lived with her, and was trying to shine 
in the sun, whose rays danced lamely on the half-glittering, 
half-begrimed gold letters of the word Coromandel. 

What charmed craft was this, that, without mast or sail, 
without crew or helmsman, had survived abandonment 
and withstood the storm ? 

Was it some iron-plated line-of -battle ship, having won 
a doubtful victory over the elements ? But the black sides 
showed neither porthole nor gun. 

Was it a vagrant prison-hulk, whose mutinous convicts 
had fired their dungeon and fled ? But there was none of 
the mildew or rust of a floating jail. 

Was it a loathsome and wandering hospital, cast adrift 
to be purged of the winds ? But there were no high upper- 
works to indicate a fever-ship. 


9 


10 


PIIOLOGUE. 


The rolling hulk must have been something different 
from all these ; perhaps a trim whaler or stately packet ; but 
whatever it was once, it was now a pitiful ruin. 

Like a fly that had dashed through a lamplight leaving 
its wings in the flame, the Coromandel had passed through 
a conflagration which had swept off her masts, her sails, 
her rigging, her railing, — everything that was dry and in- 
flammable ; and yet her hull remained ; defaced, but un- 
harmed ; nevertheless, foredoomed perhaps to a slower yet 
sadder fate ; for the great water-fly now lay un winged, 
bedrabbled of the waves, and forlornly awaiting a lingering 
death. 

The whole world loves to pity a few castaways; like 
the Polaris wanderers, who drifted at sea for many months 
on a crumbling iceberg ; or like the Medusa’s raft-full of 
sufferers, whose anguish Gericault painted ; or like La 
Perouse and his missing ships and comrades, whose fate 
was hidden from mankind for a generation. 

What was the Coromanders still stranger tale ? 


CHAPTER I. 


THE TRIAL TRIP. 



IHE Coromandel, a superb ship of 418 tons, was built in 


-L 1847 by three public-spirited Boston merchants who 
were promised the help of the Navy Department in a search 
for Sir John Franklin — a project of rescue then in the 
full flush of those bright hopes which, not till a quarter 
of a century later faded away forever. 

By a lattice-work composed of cross-beams, hanging 
knees, and two-inch planks, the ship had been made as 
tough as a hickory wedge, to plough the ice-floe. 

But after her launching the government pronounced her 
too big for Arctic navigation ; and her chagrined owners 
dropped her original name (which was to have been the 
RorLh Star), and equipped and christened her for their 
familiar trade with the Coromandel Coast. 

Owing to her staunchness of build, and her dryness of 
hold, she was chartered to carry a select and (at that time) 
unusual cargo of canned meats, vegetables, and fruits to 
Cape Town, for the South Atlantic whaling fleets. 

Changed thus in name and destination, the Coromandel, 
Capt. Chiswick K. Lane, sailed from Boston, August 5th, 
1847, bound for the Cape of Good Hope. 

Her trial trip proved a trip of trials. 

The captain had promised, since his ship was new, and 
had her honors yet to win, to make his voyage in fifty 
days ; but after fifty-six by nautical reckoning (that is. 


11 


12 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


from noon to noon), he was not yet in sight of the Cape 
Colony Coast. 

At noon, on the fifty-seventh, Kodney Yail, M.D., 
one of the passengers, took the ship’s position with a 
small ivory quadrant which he carried as a scientific toy. 

Just then a flying-fish leaped on board — the first visitor 
of the kind during the voyage. 

“My wife,” said Dr. Yail, “wants to see one of these 
shining creatures ; I will take this down to her in the 
cabin.” 

Mrs. Mary Yail, a delicate invalid, was in her state- 
room, sitting by a work-basket, stitching a little piece of 
cream-colored flannel. 

“What, still busy?” exclaimed her husband. “Sew- 
ing, sewing, always sewing ! No variation of the needle 
on this ship ! ” 

A princess of needle-craft was Mary Yail, deft and cun- 
ning in her white-fingered art. A needle and thread are 
as necessary to some women as a cup of tea is to others. 
Mrs. Yail had sewed for the poor, sewed for the sick, 
sewed for orphans, sewed for charity scholars, and was 
sewing now for — whom ? 

For somebody who was nobody ! 

Within her motherly mind, she had conjured up the 
plan of a wee wardrobe, of which nobody should sew a soli- 
tary stitch except herself : — an outfit whereof the inventory 
ran in this wise : 

Six tiny shirts of linen cambric, soft as rose-leaves ; six 
petticoats of flannel, downy as the fur of white mice ; six 
dresses of Nainsook lawn, with tucks like the reefs in the 
Coromanders sails ; six pairs of Lilliput socks, of zephyr 
worsted, with twisted strings and dangling fuzz-balls; and 
finally, a baby’s cap, with ribbons pilfered from boxes of 
wedding cake. 

Just as Dr. Yail stepped into the state-room, Mrs. Yail 


THE TRIAL TRIP. 


13 


was talking of these uncompleted garments to her nurse. 
Aunt Bel. This companion of her heart’s hopes was an 
African who had never seen Africa. Bel had nursed Mary’s 
mother at Mary’s birth, and now was sailing half way 
round the world to greet the unborn face of that child’s 
child. 

“ What you got dar ?” asked Bel, as Rodney held out 
the flying-fish on a palm-leaf fan. 

“Here,” said he, “is the most persecuted of God’s creat- 
ures. The dolphin chases him out of the water, and the 
frigate-bird drives him hack into it. Between his two 
hungry enemies, he has no rest either in the air or the sea. 
Then, as if appealing to man, he flies on board a passing 
ship and dies. This little fellow has just dashed himself 
to death in a beautiful spasm.” 

“Now,” said Aunt Bel, striking an attitude of preach- 
ment, “ dat little lump o’ beauty is like de human soul. 
Fust, it’s in de rollin’ waters ob earthly ’fliction ; den in 
de flyin’ clouds ob divine wrath. De poor soul keeps pal- 
pitatin’ ’tween de two, and tinks dat each is wus dan t’oder, 
until at last it worries de life out of itsef, and gives a flop 
up into Aberham’s bosom, whar de wicked cease from 
troublin’, and de w.eary am at rest.” 

Aunt Bel’s name had been either Isabel or Rosabel ; she 
herself did not know which ; but Rodney, to tease her, 
called her J ezebel. 

She was a large and elderly woman, compounded in 
equal parts of muscle and fat, and so full of the milk of 
human kindness that she seemed many mothers in one. 
She was mother to one son of her own, and mother to 
multitudes of sons of other women. Her own and only 
son was a young man, Pete, a gunner’s mate in the navy. 

“Mary,” said her husband, “we are only two hundred 
and fifty miles from land.” 

“ A foreign land,” she answered, with a sigh ; for Mrs. 


14 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Vail had, from the beginning, disapproved of her husband’s 
trip to Cape Town. Nevertheless Dr. Vail had based 
upon it his hope of a career. His chief and lifelong friend 
was Oliver Chantilly, a young American naval officer. The 
tie between them was sacred. Chantilly early left the 
naval service, which was then inactive and unpromising, 
and went to Cape Town to construct some wharves and 
breakwaters after American models. These works prom- 
ising to prove remunerative, Chantilly had written home 
inviting Vail to aid him. There was also to be a viaduct, 
which Vail, who had studied civil engineering, would 
exclusively direct. Vail had eagerly accepted Chantilly’s 
offer, and was now on his way to join his friend in South 
Africa. 

The voyage was one to which Mrs. Vail, vowing she 
would ne’er consent, consented. 

Woman-like ! 

Rodney Vail, whose student-life had been passed first at 
Harvard and afterward at Jena, had undertaken to master 
two scientific professions, medicine and engineering ; the 
first for his father’s sake, the second for his own ; and on 
coming home from Europe, he straightway pursued a 
third study, the most fascinating of all— the art of love. 

Having known Mary Pritchard from childhood ; having 
gone to school with her, played blind-man’s-buff with her, 
and hunted for birds’ nests with her ; having done all this 
in his boyish years without feeling any mysterious senti- 
ment for her, or consciously falling in love with her ; — 
nevertheless when, on his return from a long absence, he 
saw her no longer a school-girl, but the school-teacher ; 
no longer a child but a woman ; her face and character both 
of ripe loveliness, Rodney Vail marveled at his former 
stupidity in not having discovered all this in Mary 
Pritchard several years before it existed to be seen ; but 
he saw it now so vividly that he bowed down before it. 


THE TRIAL TRIP. 


15 


and worshiped it ; — just as some young Greek, after long 
playing with Psyche as a companion, yet without suspect- 
ing her a goddess, might at last stand abashed at discover- 
ing her divinity. 

“ Our love was not at first sight,” said Rocfftey, ‘ v 'but all 
philosophers admit that second-sight is what shows to the 
soul its chief visions and high delights ; — which was the 
way I came to see mine.” 

This husband and wife had been married about a year, 
and their honeymoon had not waned but waxed. 

Standing in the state-room, discussing the winged fish, 
Rodney Vail presented a manly figure, a trifle above the 
ordinary height ; a frame not stalwart but strong ; a head 
that took a large hat ; hair fine and light, tinged with a 
slight shade of auburn ; a countenance older than most 
men show at twenty-six ; eyes deep-set, steel blue, and, 
when fired, as bright as diamonds ; a hawk’s nose, with 
game-blooded nostrils ; and a slight beard and moustache, 
neither of which had ever been cut. 

Sitting on a low trunk, Mrs. Vail’s dark hazel eyes, 
which were turned away from the light, appeared deep 
black, and her hair added its jet to match. A woman’s 
hair is one of the supreme beauties of the world. The 
beauty of Mary’s was in its color and curls. She wore it 
in ringlets at the side of her head, and knotted with a tor- 
toise-shell comb at the back. The white line of parting 
that ran through the black masses curved exquisitely over 
her rounded head. Her husband, who stood over her, 
gently traced this curve with his forefinger, and might 
have quoted of it Mrs. Browning’s metaphor (had it then 
been written), 

“ Ono moonbeam from the forehead to the crown. ” 

Mrs. Vail answered this caress with a look which showed 


16 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


that, though she was a Puritan of the good old Christian 
stock, she was given to idolatry, and her idol was her hus- 
band. 

“Mary, ” said he, pointing to the silvery dead creature 
on the yellow fan, “ these lustrous wings have ended their 
flight in this life ; but Plato says that the swan at death' 
sings her sweet song because she divines her immortality. 
Who knows but this little siren of the sea will be flying to 
meet us on our voyage into the next world ? ” 

“Crazy stuff!” exclaimed Bel, who was the Biblical 
authority for the family. “ What’s de good book say ? 
‘ Dere shall be no more sea . 9 How den can dere be any fish ? 99 

Jezebel, at Rodney’s order, then opened the brass-rim- 
med window of the state-room, and threw overboard the 
flying-fish ; which done, she stood fitting her big, serene 
face into the small frame, watching the weather. 

“ What are you looking for, Jezebel ?” 

“Massa Vail, Pm looking for de lan’. ” 

“Ho, you are looking up into the clouds — you will not 
see land in that quarter. ” 

“ Yes, I see it now. ” 

“ What land ? ” 

“ I see de promise lan’ — de lan’ what the good book 
says; 

“ * Sweet fields beyond de swellin’ flood 
Stan’ dressed in livin’ green.’ ” 

“Ah, ” said Rodney, with mock gravity, “ you may 
look at it, but you can never enter it, for no Jezebel can 
enter the kingdom of heaven . 99 

“ My dear Rodney, ” sighed Mary, “ all day long my mind 
has been shadowed with a presentiment of evil. ” 

“Nonsense ! ” he exclaimed. “Premonitions belong to 
the limbo of ghosts, wraiths, stigmata, and the like ; that 
is, to the Utopia of the imagination . 99 


THE TRIAL TRIP. 17 

“But, Rodney, why is Bel always seeing visions and 
dreaming dreams. ” 

“Jezebel,” he asked, “what new phantom have you 
been worrying Mary with ? Is it some of your marriage- 
suppers with Jacob and Esau ? — with Enoch and Elijah ? 
What’s the last new revelation ? Come. ” 

Nothing pleased Aunt Bel better than to recite her noc- 
turnal interchanges with the heavenly shades. 

“ Massa Vail,” said she, “ my boy Pete, he come to me. 
Now he ain’t dead ; so he didn’t come in white ; he come 
in his own skin, and dat’s black enough ; but de Lord 
made it for Pete, and if Pete’s white enough for de Lord, 
he’s white enough for me. Well, dis yer boy Pete, he’s a 
man grown, and he come to me, and he says, Mammy, you 
shall go tru de fiery furnace. So shall de Missis. So 
shall de Massa. You mus’ all go tru de seven times heated 
furnace. And when de fire is a crackin’ and crackin’, 
and de flame is a curlin’ and curlin’, and de heat is a 
meltin’ and meltin’, and when it is a tryin’ to consume de 
hem of your garments, den shall Nebchanezzar say, Did we 
not cast tree into de midst of de fire ? True, 0 King. 
Den Nebchanezzar shall say, Lo, I see four , loose, walkin’ 
in de midst of de fire, and dey have no hurt, and de form 
of de fourth is like de Son of God.” 

Jezebel uttered these words with such fervor that Dr. 
Yail, in looking at her, was unaware for a moment that his 
wife, sitting behind him, was lapsing into a fainting fit. 

The pallid lady was instantly assisted to her bed. 

The physician’s glance showed Rodney that Mary’s trial 
had come. It was premature, but was at hand. Dr. Yail 
understood its ominous meaning. If there is a sacred 
spectacle on earth, it is a woman in the hour of the most 
majestic of human anguish. Rodney, in now gazing at 
its approach, borrowed from it a dread that filled and 
shook his own soul. 


18 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ What if this woman/’ thought he, “ the pearl, the 
crown of my life, the one image of my heart’s worship — 
what if she should die ! — to be buried in the sea ! — or in 
the foreign land that lies just before us, turning its Good 
Hope into despair!” 

Dr. Vail’s loud watch, as he looked at it in silence, 
seemed uttering a death-tick. 

“ Dear lamb,” said old Bel, cheerily to Mrs. Vail, “ dis 
am a strange world. De women hav all de hardest work to 
do, all de heaviest burdens to bear, while de men jist stand 
and wait for de salvation ob de Lord. But never mind, 
honey. De men is shet off from de ’ceedin’ great and pre- 
cious promises. What’s de good book say ? * What is man 
dat Dou art mindful ob him ?’ Now, it says noffin like 
dat ob de woman . Why ain’t de Lord mindful ob de 
man ? Cause de Lord wants to give his whole mind to de 
woman.” 

“Rodney, what is this faintness ?” asked his wife, with 
a broken voice. 

“ Taste this,” he replied. 

But the wine did not revive her, and she sank into a 
lethargy. 

The daylight was now so far spent, and the twilight 
had so far deepened, that Dr. Vail, on taking out his 
watch, could not see the hands across the gold face. 

Suddenly vivid lightning and immediate thunder started 
him to his feet. The ship shook from stem to stern ; a 
tumbler of water on the stand beside him spilt on his 
hand. Then came another flash and peal. Between the 
flashes the darkness was appalling. 

Preoccupied with his patient, he had not noticed the 
gathering storm till it had burst. 

Mary’s features were strangely illumined by the fiery 
beams. 

Rodney gazed in amazement as her stiff and rigid body 


THE TRIAL TRIP. 


19 


passed alternately out of light into darkness — out of dark- 
ness into light. She lay without consciousness, and appar- 
ently without life. 

Then a flash of horrible brightness pierced the state- 
room window, and shot like an arrow into Dr. Yail’s 
blinded eyes. A simultaneous thunder-clap, like a ham- 
mer-stroke, smote his ears as if it would crush the sense 
of hearing. The jar to the ship was so violent that he 
tottered back, staggered like a drunken man, struck 
his head violently against an iron bolt, and fell to the 
floor. 

Within his mind, in the act of falling, scene after 
scene of his past life rose before him : — his father’s house, 
and the meadow in front of it ; the harbor of Salem, 
with its ships and fishing-smacks ; the corpses on the dis- 
secting table, and the keen scalpels ; the clinking mugs 
in the German bier-gardens ; Mary Pritchard going home 
from school through Newberry lane, carrying a handful of 
pinks ; Oliver Chantilly’s letter from Cape Town, lying 
in its blue envelope ; Mary Yail with a pale face, dead 
and not buried ; a wild-looking man crouching down in a 
corner by her side ; a blazing light, like the end of the 
world : — all this passed through Rodney Yail’s mind like 
an electric message through the wires ; and, though the 
process was but momentary, yet it seemed to him to cover 
his whole life. 

At length he rose to his feet. What had happened to 
him, he knew not. But he heard a cry of “ Fire ! ” He 
heard voices shrieking in terror. He heard tramping feet 
overhead. The horrible truth broke upon him that the 
ship was in flames. 

He opened the state-room door, and, without emerg- 
ing, caught a glimpse of the confusion in the saloon. 
The scene was heart-rending. Most of the men had 
already rushed to the deck to learn the situation, but the 


20 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


women were huddled in the cabin, listening to orders 
from John Blaisdell, the first mate. 

“ Lightning,” said he, “ has struck the ship. The rig- 
ging is ablaze. The boats are lowering. There’s no time 
to save anything — hardly to save yourselves. The women 
and children must be taken first. Come this way — no 
crowding — one at a time — quick.” 

The mate stood by the stairway, and bravely helped 
them forward to their escape. 

In escaping, one frightened fugitive caught up a gar- 
ment ; another, a box ; and, generally, each seized some 
unimportant article, the first that came to hand. The 
Bev. Mr. Atwill clutched his Ecclesiastical Almanac ; 
Madame D’Arblay, who had many valuables to lose, be- 
thought herself of saving only a pin-cushion ; Mr. and 
Mrs. Gansevoort, an elderly couple, each took firm hold 
of the same sea-biscuit, and carried it away between them ; 
but Mr. Jansen, who had been shipwrecked once before, 
said to himself calmly, “ I will leave everything else, and 
take my pea-jacket and life-preserver.” 

Dr. Yail, through all this commotion, stood by his wife’s 
bedside, holding her right wrist in his two hands, and 
searching in agony for a pulse which his sensitive touch 
could no longer detect, and which his skilled judgment 
told him had ceased to beat. 

Bight over him on deck he heard (through the port- 
hole) the tremulous voice of Capt. Lane, crying out to the 
bewildered passengers : 

“ Quick ! The boats will be burned if we stay here. 
Let us quit the ship. Hasten for your lives.” 

Then, with Blaisdell’s powerful assistance (for the mate 
out-captained the captain), the terrified women and chil- 
dren were put into the boats, and the men followed. 

Bain now began to fall ; big drops fiercely bespattered 
the sea. 


THE TRIAL TRIP. 


21 


Up to this moment, Rodney Vail had never once thought 
of himself, nor of Bel, but only of Mary. 

Blaisdell stood ready, with a rope in his hand, to lower 
himself, the last man, into the last boat, — the captain having 
already, with cowardly haste, clambered down into another. 

Rodney heard the mate say, 

“ Vail is missing. Where is Yail ? Where is Vail's wife? 
They are not in the boats.” 

But at the same time, Rodney heard Capt. Lane give an 
order in these words : 

“ Wait no longer ! boys ! push off ! Get out of the way 
of these sparks ! The ship is lost. Blaisdell, east south- 
east ! ” 

In went the oars, off went the boats, and up went the 
flames, crimsoning the sky. 

Dr. Vail, who was left on the burning vessel, had a calm, 
vivid, and awful sense of the scene. He fully realized by 
what danger he was surrounded, and by what fate he was 
approached. Stumbling against the nurse, who sat with 
patient, folded hands, quiet as the dead, he exclaimed, 

“ Great God ! Bel, are you here ? I thought you had 
escaped. Run ! Flee for your life ! It is not too late. 
Quick ! I'll call the captain back ! ” 

Rodney leaped to the window, and cried, 

“Lane ! Lane !” but the rolling thunder drowned his 
voice. 

“ Help ! I say ! Lane ! Lane ! ” but the cry was un- 
answered, unheeded. 

Ho time was left now for anything but death, nor time 
to meet this with the dignity that was its due. 

“Bel,” said Rodney, with a horrible serenity, “Mary 
is dead, and, we too must die.” 

As a last act, he knelt at his wife’s bedside, took her 
hands in his, held them fast, murmured her name, and 
kissed her lips. 


22 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


He shed no tear, shook no muscle, and moved no nerve. 
It is given unto all men once to die : and this man, being 
no coward, resolved to meet his fate without fear. 

(( Is this death ?” said he. “Must I face it ? Then I 
choose to face it in my wife’s face. Death itself shall not 
look dead. I shall defy it, and die alive ! ” 

The rain was a torrent — a deluge. It was quenching 
the conflagration. The fire was fleeing before it. Gloom 
was spreading through the state-room. Darkness rolled 
in, like a wave, and filled it. 

Condemned to die, Rodney Vail sat clasping the hand 
of the dead. 

Into his mind came a new thought : — would the ship, 
which was no longer on fire, sink or float ? 

He had no sooner asked himself this question than he 
heard — was it Bel’s voice ? — uttering a low prayer. He 
had never known her to speak so softly. Her changed 
manner awed and melted him. It seemed as if she had 
borrowed the tongue of her mistress, now that her mistress 
was no more. His own name was spoken. The words 
were a prayer for his sake. 

Suddenly awaking to the mystery, he cried, “ Mary ! 
Mary ! — my wife ! my wife ! ” 

His wife’s own voice it was that he heard ! — her own 
pulse that he felt ! — her own living self that his arms 
clasped ! — her own re-warmed lips that he kissed ! 

She had revived. 

Then, as if a new soul had been created within him, 
as if a new earth had been unrolled around him, as if a 
new heaven had descended upon him, Rodney Vail uttered 
one exclamation of praise and thanks, and, trembling like 
a reed, wept like a child. 

It was pitch dark. 

“ Bel,” he exclaimed, “light the lamp.” 

“ My dear husband,” asked a sick voice, “ what is the 


THE TRIAL TRIP. 


23 


matter ? Is it nighfc ? Have I been asleep ? Has any- 
thing gone wrong ? ” 

“No, nothing ! ” he cried, in a frenzy of joy. “Nothing 
is wrong in all the world — God has set all things right ! ” 

Bel quietly rose and lighted the lamp. 

At a glance Rodney discovered that Mary knew nothing 
of the disaster, and he resolved to conceal it from her for 
the present. 

This was easy, for her thoughts were not of the ship ; 
her critical hour was now at its supreme moment. 

Beside her stood a man whose soul rose within him to for- 
bid death and to command birth. With proud care he min- 
istered mercy. There is a dew distilled from Lethe’s 
stream to conquer pain. He gave it her, and she quaffed 
it. Oblivion overcame her ; peace stole through her weary 
frame ; unconscious smiles played over her face ; her white 
hands involuntarily moved as if keeping time to music : 
and her lips broke forth into a Gregorian chant which 
she had often sung in church. 

Then, in sweet unconsciousness, an hour after midnight, 
herself the first bird of the morning, heralding to others her 
happiness before her own heart awoke to it, the sleeping 
mother brought her babe into this stormy world. 

“Jezebel,” exclaimed Rodney, “this boy is a girl.” 

“ Hoity toity ! ” answered Bel. “ Why, it’s de dear 
lamb’s lambkin ! Come into my arms ! Dar, so ! Cryin’ eh ! 
Dat’s a good sign. Chillen dat ain’t born a cryin’ will 
never live to laugh.” 

“Ah, Oliver Chantilly,” thought Rodney, “have you a 
son ? I have a daughter. You and I may how compare 
Heaven’s gifts. God’s first piece of humanity was man— 
his second was woman. Which of the two is more like 
the Maker ? ” 

“I declar,” said Bel, “what a headstrong little piece 
showin’ her temper a’ready ! Lawks amassy, chillen be- 


24 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


gins to be folks as soon as dey are born. Dar, now, be 
a good chile. What’s de good book say ? 

“ ‘ ttockaby, baby, 

On de tree top ! ’ 

“ But dis baby, instead of de tree-top, hab got all de 
rollin’ ship for a rockin cradle ! I declar ! ” 


CHAPTER II. 


FIGHTING AGAINST FATE. 

A FTER the shipwreck, what was the next day’s history 
of the fire-scourged Coromandel ? It was a log kept, 
not by Capt. Lane, but Capt. Vail. The vessel had passed 
into fresh commission, under a new admiralty. 

The day began, for Rodney, before the night ended. 

“ What shall I do for the ship ? ” asked its solitary 
master. 

The first act of a man when profoundly perplexed is 
some unconscious trifle ; so Dr. Tail wound his watch ; 
the time was three o’clock in the morning. 

“The fire,” thought he, “ was put out before Lane 
was far from the ship. He and his boats will try to re- 
turn. The best I can do is to help them find the Cor- 
omandel in the dark. ” 

So he hunted about for a couple of lanterns, which he 
found and lighted. 

Crawling then across the deck on his hands and knees, 
sometimes slipping and sliding, and fearful that the bul- 
warks were burnt off, which would expose him to the risk 
of falling overboard, he finally succeeded in lashing one of 
the lights on the larboard side to an unburnt stancheon, 
and the other on the starboard to an iron-rod of the main 
shrouds. 

The rain and wind were still brisk, but were moder- 
ating. 


25 


26 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


The lanterns enabled him to notice that not a mast was 
left standing, and that a heap of tangled spars and rigging 
lay athwart the ship, dipping their tips into the water, 
first on one side, then on the other. 

“Everything aloft, ” said he, “has come down, even the 
little cherub that sits there in the song. But another 
cherub is now lying wrapped in a babe’s blanket in the 
cabin. So the ship has a good genius on board. ” 

Having swung his lanterns, he had partly descended the 
stairs, when suddenly he was bumped against by some 
rounded object like a tumbling bag or sack, heavy but not 
hard. 

The blow knocked him down. 

“ What is this ?” he cried, leaping to his feet only to be 
struck again. 

“ Beaver, you foolish pup ! ” he exclaimed, hearing with 
grateful relief the welcome bark of Capt. Lane’s dog. 

This bouncing water-spaniel, brown and big-eared, was 
a gift to the captain from a fisherman of Marblehead. 
Early during the voyage. Dr. Vail, who was fond of ani- 
mals, had made the acquaintance of this frisky dog. The 
grateful amphibian, having probably been half-scared 
out of his wits by the fire and tempest, now joyfully 
capered around his former friend. 

Be-entering the cabin, Beaver following him, Rodney 
lighted a lamp in Room No. 1, opposite Mary’s quarters. 
It was a double-room, exactly like hers, and had been oc- 
cupied by a rich and showy French grandmother 
named D’Arblay, her daughter, and daughter’s infant. 

Discovering a wine-flask in the rack, and a few biscuits, 
Dr. Yail broke a biscuit, tossed part of it down to Beaver, 
crunched the remainder with a Jack Tar’s appetite, drank 
a glass of wine, flung himself — jacket, boots, and all — at 
full length on the lounge, and, from the profound fatigue 
and reaction that follow nervous excitement, fell asleep. 


FIGHTING AGAINST FATE. 


27 


Not so with Bel. Haying no nerves to be unstrung, she 
did not lie down to re-string them. She gave neither 
sleep to her eyes nor slumber to her eyelids. On ordinary 
occasions she dozed like a bat, hut was now wakeful as an 
owl. Sitting with the babe on her lap, she watched it as 
some swarthy Madonna of the old-time engravings gazing 
at the Christ-child. 

“ He Lord, ” said she, “ hah come ! "What’s de good 
hook say ? ‘ Whoso receiveth dis little chile in my name, 

receiveth Me ! ’ So not only de babe is here, but de Lord 
too. Hey are both in one. ” 

If ever there was a moment of supreme pride in Jeze- 
bel’s life, it was at that dim hour when, between midnight 
and morning, she was the only human being who kept a 
vigil on that wrecked ship. Little did she trouble herself 
about the shipwreck. That was too stupendous an affair 
for her limited powers of anxiety. All great things she 
left with God. 

“He Lord,” she murmured, “must take care ob de 
ship, and I must take care ob de chile. I gib de ship to 
de Lord, and de Lord gib de chile to me.”. 

Jezebel’s imagination then lifted its sable wing, and 
soared back into the dim and shadowy past. What was 
she thinking of ? Was it the worthless lout who had once 
been her husband ? — the good-for-nothing Bruno Bamley 
who, after idling away his time for years about the Salem 
wharves, at last one day fell overboard, and being heavy 
with liquor, took his way down stream into the deep grass 
of the bottom, and rose no more — not even to a coroner’s 
inquest ? No. Mrs. Jezebel Bamley, having long been 
thus widowed, wasted no thoughts on her merciful bereave- 
ment and gainful loss. Bruno Bamley went from her 
with a good riddance, and even her memory seldom invited 
his return. She had never murmured at him in his life, 
and never mourned for him after his death. So J ezebel, in 


28 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


thinking of fche past, rarely thought of her own affairs, 
but usually of other people’s. 

“Jist to tink now,” she went on, with alow, lulling, 
by-baby yoice, “ jist to tink that twenty- two years ago, 
come September, Sophrony Vail had Baby Mary, and now 
Mary’s got one ob her own ! You peart little chick, you 
are lyin’ in dese old arms jist as yer mudder did, on de 
day of her bornin. Dear me, I wish dis ole ship wouldn’t 
jump about so. See how we rock, rock, rock ! — toss, toss, 
toss ! — roll, roll, roll ! — I trot de lambkin, and de Lord 
trots de ship. Now, my little mouse, you lie down dar ! ” 
and she fixed a snuggery in the second bed, and tucked 
the little creature tight against any chance of falling out. 

A perplexity arose in Jezebel’s mind. 

“ What’s de good book say ? ‘ Suffer little chillen to 

come unto Me.’ So de fuss ting is de baby. But de next 
ting is, de baby-clo’s. Dat’s what worries me. Dis yer 
work-basket is full o’ beginnins’ but no endins’.” 

Bel then remembered that Madame D’Arblay’s grandson 
(aged seven months) had a French wardrobe of sinful 
extravagance — an uncommon outfit of infant vanities. 

“ If all dem follies and fineries hab been lef’ behind, dey 
will jes’ come in play for my lamb’s lambkin.” 

Bel started for room No. 1 on a raid of discovery. 

Opening the door she startled Rodney, who sprang out 
of sleep, and asked, 

“ What’s the matter ? ” 

“ Matter? Why, Massa Vail — now, Beaver, you be 
off ! ” cried she, in a startled voice, to the dog, that wanted 
to know why she was opening the canvas-covered trunk. 

“ Massa Vail, I’m a-lookin’ for made-up clo’s for my 
lambkin. What’s de good book say ? f From him dat hath 
not, shall be taken away even dat which he hath.’ Jist 
look into dis trunk ! What a heap o’ shirts, petticoats, 
and bands ! It would be a sin and shame not to have 


FIGHTING AGAINST FATE. 


29 


dem tings used ! We must use dis world as not abusin’ 
it. Git away, Beaver, you troublesome dog, and don’t put 
your snoopin’ nose in here.” 

“ Aunt Bel,” said Dr. Vail, “ listen to me : Mary must 
not know of the shipwreck. Don’t say a word about it 
to Mary. She must first get strength to bear it. Act as 
though nothing strange had taken place. Her life depends 
on it.” 

“Yes, Massa Yail, and now jist you step in, light- 
footed, and bring out dat baby here to me.” 

Rodney stole into his wife’s room, blessed her in her 
sleep, and bending over the babe, lifted the little sleepy 
lump, blanket and all, and took the immortal burden 
across the cabin to Bel. 

“ It’s an ill- wind,” said he, “ that blows nobody any good, 
and this tempest has shaken this fair fruit into our lap.” 

Seated on Madame D’Arblay’s rocking-chair, Jezebel 
rocked herself against the lurchings of the ship, trying to 
keep a level, and proceeded to dress the babe in the style 
approved by loyalist French grandmothers under King 
Louis Philippe. 

The tiny head was brushed ; the velvety cheeks were 
powdered ; the downy feet were shod with felt — like King 
Lear’s steeds ; the little neck, that could not hold up its 
own head, was fretted round with gossamer-lace ; and, as 
if to make a fine mockery of misfortune, the white sleeves 
were gayly looped with gold-and-coral snaps. 

In this fine array, the young child was presented to her 
waking and joyful mother. 

“How kind of Madame D’Arblay !” exclaimed Rodney, 
to Mrs. Yail, stretching out his hands over the babe’s pro- 
digious skirt, as if in a vain attempt to measure its length. 

“ Yes,” replied Mary, “tell her so for me.” 

“ My dear lamb,” remarked Jezebel, “ what’s de good 
book say? ‘De Lord sees de end from de beginnin’.’ Yes, 


30 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


dat’s what de Lord saw when he looked at dat ole Dobbly 
woman’s trunks. He said to himself, ‘Put dat boy’s clo’s 
in, ole woman ! Heap ’em up ! — pack ’em tight ! But not 
for de Dobbly boy. Oh no ! Dere’s anoder chile a cornin’ 
into dis world by and by, who will haye need o’ baby clo’s, 
and I am de Lord and must be dar to provide.’ Dat's why 
de Lord gave Gaspar Dobbly sich a heap o’ stuff. It was 
not for Gaspar. It was all for dis yer lambkin.” 

Brighter than any ray of sunshine in this naughty 
world, was the mild and holy light that shone in the eyes 
of Mary Vail while gazing into the face of her first-born 
that lay nestled in her bosom. Gratitude unutterable 
filled that mother’s soul. Heaven’s own peace descended 
into her breast, accompanied by heaven’s latest angel to 
bear witness to its divine source. 

“Mary,” exclaimed the doctor, with assumed gayety, 
“what good news this will be to send to Grandfather 
Pritchard ! ” 

“Yes, dear Rodney, write to him as soon as you land, 
and also to my old pupil Lucy Wilmerding — that dear girl 
in London.” 

“Yes,” added Rodney, putting one forefinger on the 
other, as if counting, “and to Miss Mehitable, and to 
IJncle Billings, and to the Peaseleys, and to the Danvers 
people, and to the Hopkintons at Marblehead.” 

“How proud,” said Mary, “I shall be to show my babe 
to Rosa Chantilly ! Our children will be playmates.” 

Dr. Vail now watched on deck for the daylight. 

“What a pitiful plight ! ” he exclaimed, as he surveyed 
the ship’s bereavement. “ God help us ! What a wreck ! ” 

The desolation, when fully revealed at dawn, chilled 
his soul as the mist chilled his flesh. 

The havoc seemed total. 

The ship’s hull was almost covered out of sight by the 
mass of rigging which lay on it. 


FIGHTING AGAINST FATE. 


31 


“ How long can this poor hulk float ? 99 he cried, for the 
ship had the hideous look of being about to plunge to the 
bottom at once. 

When the morning fully came, the weather was hazy ; 
the sun was smokily visible and greatly enlarged ; Eodney 
could look at it without winking. There was no horizon. 
The vessel was shut in, either by fog or mist, or by the 
diffused remainder of her own smoke. 

He peered forward with straining eyes. “ Great heav- 
en ! 99 he cried. “How will the boats ever find the ship ? 
The eye cannot see twice the Coromandel’s length ! ” 

Glancing round the deck, he noted that not a single- 
boat had been left on board, but that all the iron davits 
from which the boats had been lowered were bent out- 
ward as if waiting for the departed crews to return. 

The fire, he saw, had gone over the ship like a varnish 
brush, polishing everything to a charred black. Still the 
flames had nowhere gnawed their way through the plank- 
ing, except to destroy the weather-boarding of the bul- 
warks, leaving only their solid stancheons and a part of 
their top-rail. These stancheons stood like a row of grim 
Ethiops, keeping sentry. The lightning had peeled off 
the word Coromandel from one side of the figure-head, 
leaving it untouched on the other. 

The pumps, which Hr. Vail hastened to try, showed no 
leak — which was a profound comfort. 

It then occured to him to examine whether the cargo 
had shifted. He lifted a hatch and made his way darkly 
down for a tour of inquiry. He groped like a stevedore 
along the bulk-heads, crawled over the merchandise, peer- 
ed into the crevices between the well-packed goods, and 
found that everywhere, even to the store-room of the orlop- 
deck, everything was firm, and nothing was banging about 
except himself as he was set lurching by the sea. 

“How well, ” said he, “these cans and cases have been 


32 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


packed ! They fit each other like stones in a wall. They 
would be a solid fortress against starvation. What if, from 
hunger, my little family of castaways should have to break 
into this storehouse ! Here are rations enough for a navy. ” 

Returning to the deck, he stretched a rope from stan- 
cheon to stancheon around the ship for a life-line, so that 
if he were struck by a wave he might have something to 
clutch at and cling to. 

“ I must hoist a signal of distress, ” said he ; and tying 
one of the bed-sheets to a boat-hook, he lashed the shaft 
to the stump of the mizzen-mast, and swung out the white 
emblem to the breeze. 

Dr. Vail’s greatest labor was to get the ship out of the 
trough of the sea — in other words, to swing her head 
round to the wind. He knew this might be accomplish- 
ed if he could get the debris of the fallen spars overboard to 
serve as a water-drag, leaving the ship moored to this as to 
a buoy ; for the ship would drift to a cable’s length away 
from the drag, and would then swing round to this slug- 
gish mass as to a semi-anchorage. 

“ That’s the plan, ” said he, “ but how can I move these 
spars ? ’ 

Taxing his ingenuity for the construction of this drag, 
or rather for its launching (since it had constructed itself) 
he cunningly fixed a series of pullies that multiplied their 
strength forty-fold ; and at last, after much toil and 
struggle, he lifted, swayed, and heaved the heavy timbers 
triumphantly into the sea. 

The ship immediately swung to, pointed like a weather- 
vane directly at the wind, rode steadily, and lifted her 
fore-foot gracefully over every wave that came. 

This was the best piece of work he did on the ship ; and 
he felt in doing it that it ministered a sweet medicine to 
Mary, for it smoothed her pillow and gave to her tossing 
bed a comparative quiet. 


FIGHTING AGAINST FATE. 


33 


At noon lie got out his quadrant to take the ship’s 
position. 

Capt. Lane, in escaping, had carried with him his port- 
able instruments, and left only the standard compass— 
which was a fixture in the deck, set like a bull’s-eye in 
front of the steersman’s wheel. The heavy glass over it 
was so solid that a man could stand on it as on a pavement. 
It had not been injured. Its animated presence seemed to 
say that the ship still had a soul, hopeful of life, vigilant 
under calamity, and tremulous to fate. 

The Coromandel’s hearings were Lat. 30° 28' S., Long. 
14° 36' E. 

On hunting for a map or chart to see how far he was 
from Cape Town, Rodney Vail, to his dismay, could not 
find one on the ship. 

So he knew, and yet he did not know, his position. He 
knew it nautically, hut not geographically. He was like a 
man who, landing from a balloon, for instance, in Lat. 
42° N. and Long. 70° W., but having no map of the Hew 
England coast, could not tell whether he was at Nahant 
Beach or at Cape Cod. 

Nevertheless, Rodney knew that the Coromandel was 
within two hundred and fifty miles of Table Bay. 

“ Ah, ” said he, “without masts, or sails, or crew, that’s 
a long stretch from land ! ” , 

Moreover, he knew that two strong motive powers were 
carrying him every moment still further off. One was the 
Trade Wind, which, in that quarter of the world, blows all 
the year round from Southeast to Northwest; the other 
was the Great Ocean Current, which follows the Trade 
Wind across the South Atlantic. 

Sweeping the horizon with his weather-glass to discover 
some other object than the waves and clouds, he heaved a 
sigh and exclaimed, 

“Nothing hut nothingness ! Yes, yonder goes a flock 


34 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


of sea-birds overhead ! ” and he suddenly lifted his arms 
towards them, and with a strange pathos of appeal, cried 
out, 

“ 0 cranes of Ibycus, fly home and bear thither the tale 
of my misfortunes ! ” 

After the unheeding birds flew by, Rodney thought of 
putting up a jury-mast. 

“No, I shall not rig a sail,” said he, “for the ship 
could go only before the wind, and this would simply carry 
her faster and further away from the coast.” 

Nevertheless, he examined the rudder to see whether it 
was in steering order. The rudder itself was not damag- 
ed. The wheel, being of hard wood and inlaid with brass, 
had suffered ugly disfigurement rather than actual harm. 
But the leather ropes of the tiller had snapped, and their 
broken ends were curled like scraps of pork in a frying-pan. 
Overhauling the ship’s stores, he selected a piece of strong 
rope to replace these, and he thus put the helm in working 
condition even though there was no motive-power for steer- 
age-way. 

Just then, the Coromandel, in mounting over a high 
wave, mournfully tolled her bell ; and Rodney, not relish- 
ing its dismal sound, tied its hammer and stopped its 
requiem. 

This done, he sat down by the companion-way and took 
off his hat that the breeze might cool his brow. The dog 
wedged his brown, shaggy head under his master’s arm, 
while the master occupied himself with his thoughts. 

“ Ah,” he exclaimed, snuffing the damp smell of the 
quenched fire, “ in prosperity, saith the proverb, no altars 
smoke ; but I have had a calamity that has sent up its 
flames to all the heavens. Nevertheless, Mary is alive — 
the child is born— the ship is afloat. Twelve hours ago, 
in exchange for these mercies I would have given the uni- 
verse. I then thanked heaven for its goodness. Shall I now 


FIGHTING AGAINST FATE. 


35 


take back those thanks ? No, amid this day’s ruins, God 
be praised for this day’s mercies ! Better men than I 
haye had worse calamities — men of whom the world was 
not worthy ! They have been stoned ; they have been 
sawn asunder ; they have been slain with the sword ; they 
have wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins ; they 
have hidden in deserts, in mountains, in dens, in caves of 
the earth. Who am I compared with these ? What have 
I lost ? Nothing to what I have gained. Gloria in Ex- 
celsis Deo.” 

Patting the dog’s head he still went on talking to him- 
self. 

“ My wife suspects nothing as to the disaster. She is 
shipwrecked without knowing it. Hers is a novel com- 
fort in misery— an unheard of luxury in misfortune.” 

Then Rodney’s grateful mind reverted lovingly to the 
little new-comer, swaddled in French finery down stairs. 

“What a tender little thing !” said he. “That babe, 
amid the outer roughness of this fire-blasted ship, is like 
a pearl hidden in a sea-rusted shell.” 

Whereupon the civil engineer, working with the magic 
enginery of his fancy, straightway built a castle in Spain 
for the young maid to dwell in, spanned the sky with rain- 
bows for her to gaze at, paved the world with flowers for 
her to walk on, and erected a golden gate for her to pass 
through — into a paradise on earth. 

Suddenly a great clump of drift-weed floated up appa- 
rently from under the ship, as if the wind had blown her 
first on to it, and then over it. 

For a moment Dr. Vail deceived himself with the hal- 
lucination that it was a boat of rescue ; but he quickly 
saw his mistake, and with a sigh of disappointment, ex- 
claimed, 

“Why do not the boats come back ? What has become 
of Lane ? When the ship was no longer on fire, he ought 


36 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


to have returned to her. Would I have abandoned him 
so ? Never ! Will lie reach Cape Town ? If he does — if 
he there presents himself without his ship, without me, and 
without excuse — Oliver Chantilly will lift upon the dog a 
lion’s paw and claw him down ! ” 

Then another thought came over Rodney Yail’s mind, 
at which he inwardly quaked. 

“What if Mary,” he exclaimed, “had been left for 
dead in the abandoned ship ! — left to waken alone, in the 
fire, in the storm, in her agony ! — left to bring forth her 
babe in darkness and despair ! — left to cry out in her weak- 
ness, and get no answer but the tempest ! — left to famish 
and die, and her child to perish with her ! — left to moulder 
in this charnel-house, and her ashes to drift about the sea 
in this floating urn ! 0 God ! ” he exclaimed, looking 

heavenward, “Strip me as bare as this hulk ! — beat and 
buffet me with every storm ! — toss me on every wave ! — 
cast me on every desolate shore around the whole earth ! — 
but let me never be sundered from Mary and this child ! ” 
The strong man bent his head upon his hands and 
wept. 

Beaver barked reprovingly, as if such behavior in the 
captain ought to be rebuked by the mate. 

Rodney Yail then went down stairs softly ; passed on 
tip-toe the room through whose door, ajar, he heard the 
babe’s delicious fretting ; entered into the D’Arblay cita- 
del ; slipped off his pea-jacket ; cleansed his hands from 
the taint of tar; put on a white-flannel summer-coat; 
sprinkled a fresh handkerchief with the Trench lady’s 
cologne ; stole in upon Mrs. Yail, who was awake, and 
glancing at the babe, who was asleep, said peremptorily, 

“ Mary, this child was bom anonymous, and needs 
naming. ” 

“Born what ?” exclaimed Jezebel, “dere ain’t noffin 
de matter wid dis yer lambkin’s bornin ! ” 


FIGHTING AGAINST FATE. 


37 


“A name, Jezebel, a name ! What shall be the baby’s 
name ? ” 

“ Law, Massa,” replied that elder sister of the church, 
“ gib her a Scriptur name, gib her a beautiful name out 
ob de good book.” 

“ What shall it be ?” 

“ Well,” said Jezebel, pondering the matter, “ call her 
— no, not dat — call her — no, — call her, well, call her 
Deuteronomy.” 

Jezebel’s suggestion not meeting the approval of the 
critical parents, Rodney said, 

“ Mary, proud mother, name your daughter.” 

“ Rodney,” replied his wife, who had already thought 
on the difficult family problem of naming the first child, 
“ since our dear little girl has had her birth so far from 
her own country — and since she is to live an exile in a 
foreign land — call her Barbara.” 

“ So be it,” exclaimed Rodney, pleased with the 
thought. “ Be Barbara her name. Barbara Vail ! Let 
all the world ring its bells for Barbara ! Tell it to the 
earth and the heavens — Barbara ! Barbara Yail ! ” 

The mother kissed her babe on the forehead, as if to set 
the name there as a sacred seal. 

“ Mary,” said her husband, “ I now believe in love at 
first sight, for I fell in love with Barbara Yail the first 
time I set my eyes upon her.” 

“ Tut,” said Jezebel, “ you am not de only man who 
will be a sayin’ dat by and by.” 


CHAPTER III. 


BREAKING THE NEWS. 


FTER the Coromandel had set sail from Boston for 



-Ax. the Cape of Good Hope, not only did many friends 
in America follow her with gentle wishes outward bound, 
but in England a young maid’s heart went dancing 
with the ship along her voyage, and in Cape Town a little 
family of joyful expectants found their pulses beating 
faster than usual whenever they looked toward the coming 
vessel, laden with her precious freight of beloved hearts. 

The young girl in England was Lucy Wilmerding, who, 
while at her American home in Salem, had been Miss 
Mary Pritchard’s favorite pupil, and who was now sojourn- 
ing at a hotel in London with her father, on their way 
through a course of extensive travel in Europe. 

Dressed with elegant simplicity, this beautiful young 
brunette was sitting with her bonnet on, in her hotel room, 
waiting for a carriage in which she was to ride about 
London for a day’s sight-seeing, when she suddenly be- 
thought herself of beguiling the time by writting a letter. 
“ Lucy, my dear, to whom are you writing ? ” 

“ Papa, I am writing to Miss Pritchard — I mean to Mrs. 
Yail — but I keep calling her by her old name, just as the 
girls did at school. The letter will reach Cape Town as 
soon as she does herself, and will be a pleasant surprise to 
her. I have plenty of time to write it before the carriage 
comes.” 


38 


BREAKING THE NEWS. 


39 


The fair writer, having taken off her gloves, and dipped 
her pen, moved her hand painstakingly across a sheet of 
gilt-edged paper, — her right forefinger glittering with a 
small ruby that flashed like a metaphor over her page. 

The following is Lucy Wilmer ding’s school-girlish letter 
to her former teacher : 

j August 16, 1847. 
j London. 

Queen’s Hotel, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, City. 

My Dear Mrs. Yail : — 

(But I have hardly become accustomed to calling you by that name.) 

It was only an hour ago that your letter reached me, announcing 
your expected change of residence to Cape Town ; and I reply to it 
hurriedly while Papa is now hunting through the Guide Book for 
places to visit to-day. 

Poor, dear Papa ! Ever since Mamma died, he has wished me to be 
with him all the time. He buys me eyerything he can think of, 
whether I ask him to or not. I have such loads of things ! 

It is three months since I wrote you last, and it would now take 
many pages of these little sheets — (please notice the lovely mono- 
gram : I had it cut in Geneva) — to describe all the famous places we 
have since visited, and all the gay and brilliant entertainments we 
have attended — particularly in Paris. 

The ladies of Paris dress with charming taste— so neat and simple. 
The street-dress now worn is a rich basque over a plain skirt. This 
does away with the old-fashioned dragging flounces that used to 
sweep up and down Tremont and Washington streets. 

We went twice to see Rachel, the great tragedienne. Papa wanted 
me to go again, but this great actress has made me so wretched with 
her griefs, she was so real and horrible, that I could see her afterward 
in my dreams, creeping toward me with her dagger, and waking me 
in a shiver of fear. 

Perhaps I did not mention in my last that while we were in Berlin 
(where we lived for seven months) a young American gentleman was 
very attentive to Papa and me. This person has come here to see us 
again, and will remain for a few weeks. He comes every day, and 
Papa (who is very, very fond of him) says he has an old head on 
young shoulders — also a “ faculty ” for business, and will one day 
make his fortune. 


40 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Papa has no respect, you know, for a young man who cannot 
make his way in the world as he did himself. 

Our young visitor is going to enter as a naval student at Annapo- 
lis, the same place where your South African friend, Mr. Chantilly, 
was brought up. My Papa’s young friend is to be first a midship- 
man, and by and by an admiral. He is tall and splendid, and his 
name is Anthony Cammeyer. 

How would that name sound for a lady ? I don’t mean now. O 
dear no — a long way off in the future. (Please keep this a great 
secret.) 

To-day is my sixteenth birthday, and Papa declared that if I 
searched I would find gray hairs : but when I glanced at the glass 
he replied, not in my head, but his. 

Is the Capt. Lane you speak of, Capt. C. K. Lane ? If so, Papa 
says the ship will be the better sailor of the two. This Capt. Lane 
once sailed one of Papa’s ships, and proved treacherous to his trust. 
Papa would never have anything to do with him afterward. 

My letter, I hope, will reach your new home before you do your- 
self ; and I wish it might be awaiting your arrival, to show you that 
I never forget my former teacher — or at least, that if I forget her in- 
structions, I remember her kindness. 

The English violet that I enclose is one from a beautiful bunch 
which Anthony brought me this morning for my birthday. I hope 
it will not altogether fade. It is now the exact emblem of your own 
quiet sweetness. 

Your ever grateful pupil, 

Lucy Wilmerding. 

P. S. — I am going to send you, next winter, a big album of vig- 
nette portraits of distinguished Europeans ; and Papa is sure you 
will respond by sending us some representative pictures of Bushmen 
and Hottentots. 

Just as Lucy Wilmerding finished writing this letter, a 
servant knocked at the door, and presented on a silver 
salver a card for Mr. Lawrence Wilmerding. 

“ Who is your visitor, papa ? ” 

“ My dear, he is a business friend of mine, Mr. James 
Scarborough — a fine specimen of a solid and elderly 
Englishman. I shall ask him to drive with us.” 


BREAKING THE HEWS. 


41 


Lucy’s hurried letter was promptly mailed per steamer 
for Cape Town, and, when within thirty-six hours of Table 
Bay, passed at midnight, in a thick mist, within hailing 
distance, the dismasted Coromandel, that lay drifting help- 
lessly in the darkness on the second night after the wreck. 

Could the letter have cried out with a living voice, as 
the agonized soul of the writer must have done, had she 
been in such near proximity to the imperiled object of her 
affection, a timely alarm might then have been followed by 
an easy search and a happy rescue. 

But the opportunity passed, never to return ! 

Meanwhile Dr. Yail sought how to break to his sick 
wife gently the sad situation of the Coromandel. 

“ Mary,” said he, “ I wish you were walking in green 
fields to-day, instead of tossing in this weary ship.” 

“ Rodney, I am almost sorry to be so near Cape Town, 
for when the Coromandel gets there, I shall not be able to 
land. It will be so tedious staying on board at the wharf 
amid the noise of discharging the cargo. I have been told 
that sickness on shipboard is far more depressing in harbor 
than at sea.” 

“ Would you like the voyage delayed ? — prolonged?” 

“ Yes, except that the other passengers are eager to reach 
their destination.” 

“ Mary, they have already gone ashore.” 

“ But you did not tell me that the Coromandel had ar- 
rived ?” 

“No, she has not arrived.” 

“And yet you say the passengers have gone ashore?” 

“Yes, they landed in the night : I did not waken you.” 

“ How strange, Rodney, that I did not hear the noise, 
for I woke at every whimper that Barbara made.” 

“ Ah, Mary, a mother will sleep through the rattling of 
thunder, and yet wake at the sigh of her child. Her ears 
are in her heart.” 


42 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Do any other passengers remain on the ship ? 99 

“No. ” 

“ How long must we stay here ? ” 

“Till your physician says you may land.” 

“ Has Oliver Chantilly been on hoard ?” 

“ I have not seen him.” 

“ Have you heard from him ? ” 

“Not a word.” 

“ Then, Rodney, go at once to Oliver’s house, and see 
Rosa. Tell her that I am anchored here like the ship. Ask 
her to come and see me, and bring little Philip with her, to 
see darling Barbara. Rosa’s pet is seven years old, and 
mine is not yet seven days ; but tell Rosa that little girls 
are more cunning than bouncing boys. The two mothers 
must immediately compare their wonderful children. 
This is the natural etiquette of motherhood. Now, Rod- 
ney, go at once.” 

Turning then to Bel, Mrs. Vail continued, 

“ What shall we do without Madame D’Arblay ? I sup- 
pose she has gathered up all Gaspar’s clothes and taken 
them away with her. How shall we dress our little tot to 
receive company ? Poor thing, I was making for her such 
a grand wardrobe, and yet she must go naked after all ! — 
Sweet daisy !” 

Whereupon the cruel mother, with her taper white fore- 
finger, drilled a small hole in Barbara’s left pink cheek, 
another in her right, and then in swift succession other 
punctures from left to right, and from right to left, mak- 
ing a series of small chasms in the delicate flesh. 

No permanent injury resulted from these flesh wounds, 
which not only quickly healed, hut immediately lost all 
traces of themselves : — like many other early impressions 
which fond parents seek in vain to leave on their chil- 
dren. 

“ Dat Dobbly woman,” said Jezebel, “ took French 


BKEAKIHG THE HEWS. 


43 


leave, but leff de brat’s dud’s behind. I truss de Lord 
she’ll never come back for ’em. What’s de good book say ? 
‘ Wanity ob wanity, all is wanity.’ ” 

“ Why did Madame D’Arblay leave Gaspar’s clothes ? ” 
asked Mary. 

“ Cause, Missis, I ? spose sich like fineries would be out 
o’ fashion where she’s agwine to — among dem Hottentots. 
Why, dey don’t wear no clothes at all, dem folks. De 
Dobbly boy don’t want no sich duds among dat tribe ! 
What’s de good book say ? Let not him dat putteth on 
de harness boast like him dat putteth it off. ’ ” 

“Mary,” said her husband, gravely, “intelligence has 
reached the ship that a strange shipwreck has lately 
occurred in these waters. Three nights ago, during a 
hurricane, a vessel bound to the Cape of Good Hope was 
struck by lightning. This was while you were lying pros- 
trate and unconscious. The ill-fated craft was ablaze from 
stem to stern. All the boats were lowered. The passen- 
gers had no time to save anything, hardly their lives. 
One man refused to go. He had a sick wife who could 
not be moved. He stood by her, resolved to die with her. 
The captain ordered the boats pushed off, leaving this 
man and woman to perish with the ship. Suddenly the 
rain fell in torrents — Heaven’s floods were poured out to 
quench Hell. The conflagration was drenched — drowned. 
That ship still drifts at sea with her little remnant of peo- 
ple on board. But they are safe — yes, safe and sound ; 
and their rescue is only a question of time — just a mere 
question of time.” 

“ How did you learn these strange facts ? ” 

“Do they distress you ?” 

“ISTo, they delight me ; I mean, the safety of the ship 
and her passengers. It was through Heaven’s pity that 
they did not perish. But where is that vessel now ?” 

“ She has passed under my command. ” 


44 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ And that ship is the ?” 

“Yes, it is the Coromandel. ” 

The whole truth flashed at last on Mary’s mind. 

Then the delicate woman, trembling with a sudden ex- 
citement which was born not of fear but of love, gave her 
husband a look that conveyed her whole heart’s homage to 
the man who had stood by her through her double peril. 

“ I will shake off my sickness, my weakness,” said she. 
“ I will be brave and fear not. Rodney, you thought me 
dead. But I shall live ! — live for your sake, and for Bar- 
bara’s ! The breath of life has been breathed into 
me anew. I will arise from this bed, and work with you 
on deck. I will make myself a sailor, and go before the 
mast. ” 

“No, my darling, ’’said her proud husband. “You 
cannot go before the mast, for every mast is gone already. ” 

This pleasantry showed to Mrs. Vail, better than any 
argument could have done, that her husband was not 
disheartened at the situation. 

“ 0 Rodney,” said she, “ what a great, what a horrible 
anxiety this will be to Oliver and Rosa Chantilly ! Poor 
Rosa ! She will imagine that we have gone to the bottom 
of the sea ! I feel more for her than for myself. ” 

“I believe,” replied Rodney, “that after Capt Lane 
reaches Table Bay, Oliver Chantilly will send that runaway 
back again to find his lost ship.” 

“Rodney, my husband, how your soul must have ag- 
onized ! What a burden of woe you bore ! And yet I 
knew nothing of it ! I was denied my just right to 
share it with you ! This is terrible for me to think of ! 
Let me never again be robbed of my precious privilege to 
suffer with you in your trials ! And you, dear Bel, how 
good you have been ! — how heroic ! — how kind ! Do you 
feel troubled now ? ” 

“ Troubled ? ” inquired Jezebel. “ Law’ my dear lamb. 


BREAKING THE NEWS. 


45 


no ; troubles am sicli troublesome tings dat I gib ’em all 
into de Lord’s hands. What’s de good book say ? ‘ Cast 
all your care upon Him, for he careth for you.’ ” 

“ Aunt Bel, ” asked Mary, “ how long do you think we 
shall be drifting about before we are picked up ? ” 

“ How long ? ” inquired Bel. “ Why, what’s de good 
book say ? It says ‘ How long, 0 God, how long ? ’ Dat’s 
how long it will be. ” 

“Dear Bel,” asked Mary, “what do you mean?” for 
Bel now assumed the weird manner that sometimes took 
such strange possession of her. “ Are you speaking in rid- 
dles ? Have you something to say and yet fear to say it ? 
Speak ; I can bear anything — everything ; keep nothing 
back ; let me know all. ” 

Bel had a spiritual freight on her mind, of which she 
wished to disburden herself, yet felt a solicitude against de- 
pressing the tender invalid ; but Rodney, whose approving 
glance the old sybil sought before uttering her oracles, 
seemed to invite the fullest confession ; whereupon J eze- 
bel spoke in the following singular strain : 

“ Missis, ” said she, “my boy Pete, he come to me, and 
says, c Mammy, obey de spirit ob de Lord. ’ How, Massa 
Vail, what’s de good book say ? * Arise, and take de 

young chile and flee into Egyp’. ’ But how are we agwine 
to flee into Egyp’ ? Dere ain’t no Egyp’ in dis place to flee- 
into. What nex’ does de good book say ? ‘ Go lead de 

chillen ob Israel into de Desert. ’ But dere ain’t no desert 
hereabouts for to git into. How, Massa Vail, if dere ain’t 
no Egyp, and if dere ain’t no desert, how den are we 
agwine to obey de good book ? Well, my boy Pete, he 
says, 4 Mammy, de spirit ob de Lord, de same spirit what 
led de young chile into Egyp’, and what led de chillen ob 
Israel into de desert — dat same spirit is agwine to lead dis 
young lambkin roun’ de sea — -yes, roun’ and roun’ de great 
deep. Dat’s de Egyp, dat’s de desert, which de spirit ob 


46 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


de Lord is agwine to lead de young chile into. Do great 
Shepherd ob de flock is agwine to lead de little white lamb- 
kin tru de green pastures ob de big sea — tru de still waters 
ob de great deep. Massa Vail, what blows dis yer ship 
about ? It is de Lord’s brefl — it is de spirit ob His mouth. 
But why does de Lord blow dis great ship roun’ and roun’, 
oyer de waves and tru de storms ? Well, Pete, he says, 
‘ Mammy, dat’s for to keep de young chile unspotted ob 
de world . 9 Don’t you see, Massa Vail ? Why can’t dis 
ship go straight to de green and beautiful lan’ ? Because 
de young chile can’t go into de world and keep clear ob de 
spots. So den to keep dis yer little one white and pure, 
de spirit ob de Lord blows like a mighty wind on dis yer 
ship, and totes de lambkin into de midst ob de sea, far 
away from de shore, so as to keep dis little one safe from 
de world. Dat’s it, Massa Vail. It’s to keep de young 
chile pure and white ! What’s de good book say ? — pure 
as de upright in heart, and white as dat light which de 
Twelve ’Ciples saw in de Mount of Transmigration. ” 

“ Well, Jezebel,” inquired Rodney, with smiling incre- 
dulity, “how many days does Pete condemn us to wander 
over these waves ? ” 

“Pete ?” replied Jezebel. “It ain’t Pete. It’s de spirit 
ob de Lord. What’s de good book say ? f Tarry till I 
come ! ’ Yes, Massa Vail, our times are in His hands. Folks 
can’t never hurry de Lord ! ” 

At the end of this colloquy, Dr. Vail went on deck. 

“ Sail ho ! ” he exclaimed, discovering with wild joy a 
white speck on the distant horizon. 

Rushing immediately down stairs, he announced the 
cheering intelligence to Mary. 

“We are saved !” said he, and his face beamed with 
light. 

Taking his telescope, he went back to reconnoitre the 
approaching hope. 


BREAKING THE NEWS. 


47 


“ Yes,” said lie, adjusting the lens to his eyes, “ no mis- 
take. Hull down. Two topsails above the horizon. Star- 
board tack, and heading this way. A ship ? — no, only 
two masts : a brig. A full hour yet till sunset. She will 
reach us before dark. I wonder if the Coromandel can be 
seen from the brig ? I will set an extra signal to catch 
her eye.” 

Rodney ran to a state-room, and, stripping one of the 
beds of its white linen, carried the sheets to the deck, fixed 
them to a mop handle, rolled an empty cask to the top of 
the binnacle, and, standing on the cask’s head, swung his 
white emblem to and fro with both hands. 

Slowly but steadily the strange brig pursued her course 
toward the Coromandel ! 

Taking hammer and nails. Hr. Yail fastened his flag- 
staff to the binnacle in order to keep his signal in perma- 
nent sight. 

He was in a fine delirium of pleasure. 

“ It is worth suffering the agony of despair,” said he, 
“ for the sake of enjoying the luxury of hope.” 

Lifting his glass again to his eyes to feast on the sight 
of the white- winged angel that was coming toward him 
with relief, he exclaimed with a sudden tremor in his 
voice, 

“ Merciful heaven ! the brig has tacked about, and is 
going off, leaving me behind !” 

A wild emotion, compounded half of anger and half of 
agony, went boiling through his blood like a stream of 
quicksilver. 

“ Ship ahoy !” he cried, not stopping to think that his 
voice could not reach a hundredth part of the distance to 
the truant craft. 

“ Ship ahoy ! ” he repeated, tearing off the mop-handle 
from its iron fastenings, and waving violently his flag of 
distress. 


48 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Ship ahoy ! ’ 7 he screamed, and his cry pierced the 
deck to the cabin, and entered Mary’s listening ears. 

“ Hark ! My husband’s voice ! ” said she ; “the strange 
ship must be now within hailing distance. ” 

“ Bel, please dress me. I think I am able to walk. Let 
me go up stairs.” 

“No, dear lamb,” replied her watchful shepherdess. 
“When de ’Postles was in prison, and de jailer swung 
open de gate, did dey git up and go out ? No. Dey said, 
* Let ’em come and fetch us out.’” 

“ Ship ahoy ! ” Rodney still cried on deck, and the 
shrieking voice filled the cabin with louder and hoarser 
sounds. 

“Ain’t no use o’ shoutin’ like dat,” remarked Jezebel, 
quietly. “ What’s de good book say ? ‘ Havin’ ears to 
hear, dey hear not.’ So dere ain’t no use o’ shoutin ’.’ v 

Then Rodney came tearing down stairs, bursting into 
the captain’s state-room and out again in a moment, bear- 
ing with him a rifle and ammunition, with which he has- 
tened back to the deck, where, loading his piece, he fired 
it as a signal gun. 

He did it once — twice — thrice. 

But the mimic thunder of the discharges seemed hardly 
louder than a sea-bird’s scream. 

The departing brig made no answer, and went lessening 
into the east, while the setting sun went broadening into 
the west. 

“Night is coming on,” exclaimed Rodney, “and the 
brig is still going away. 0, how shall I call her back 
through the darkness ? I must light a torch.” 

Bolting again with hot haste into the cabin, he seized a 
bed-quilt, carried it up stairs, rammed it like a wad into a 
big iron kettle, poured upon it the contents of a case of 
olive oil, and set it burning like a Greek lamp. 

“Massa Vail,” exclaimed Jezebel, who made her clumsy 


BREAKING THE NEWS. 


49 


way to tlie deck, to see what was the matter, “ what makes 
you look so wild and pale ? ” 

“Bel,” he cried, with anguish, “that vessel yonder is 
going away from us, and here comes a night-fog shut- 
ting us in with thick weather, so that even this flam- 
ing light cannot be seen half a mile away. Another hope 
is quenched ! ” and he beat his breast with his right hand, 
as if helping his heart to break. 

“ Lawks-a-massy, ” said Jezebel, “I hear dat baby a-cry- 
in’ in de cabin,” and she immediately hastened back to 
her domestic quarters, murmuring as she went, “ What’s 
de good book say ? ‘ A little chile shall lead dem. ’ So 

ole Bel must f oiler after de lambkin.” 

Thick darkness, heavy with fog, then fell on the sea. 
The burning flambeau cast a flickering glare round the 
deck and out a little way on the waters. Dim, damp, 
and lurid was the illumination, just enough to make 
darkness visible. 

Flocks of night-birds, attracted by the light, came from 
far and near, and flew back and forth through the lumi- 
nous space, sometimes almost dipping their wings into the 
fire itself. 

Beaver, a we-struck at the vivid scene, and not daring to 
bark at the audacious birds, crouched in fear at his mas- 
ter’s feet. 

Rodney Vail, noticing neither the light, nor the birds, 
nor the dog, exclaimed, 

“0, Oliver Chantilly, my friend ! my friend ! will you 
not search for the lost Coromandel ? The wandering ship 
waits for you ! Come and save my little family of casta- 
ways ! ” 


CHAPTER IV. 


CLOSER THAN A BROTHER. 


0 receive a pleasant letter in trust for another person. 



JL and to have no right to open it, but to suspect that it 
is full of kindness and affection, is to entertain an angel 
unawares. 

“For Mrs. Mary Vail, care of Mrs. Rosa Chantilly,” said 
the postman, lingering for a moment in the porch of Mr. 
Chantilly’s house at Cape Town, sheltering himself from 
the rain that fell in torrents. 

The house fronted on one of the Dutch Canals, and w r as 
shaded by the oaks that bordered those water-courses. 
But on this particular morning, no house in the city 
needed trees to shade it ; the whole heavens were hung 
with black. Moreover a still gloomier shadow rested on 
Oliver Chantilly’s mind. 

His anxiety was for Rodney Vail. 

The Cape Argus of that morning (which Oliver had just 
been reading) contained a distressful account of ravages 
by the recent hurricane. 

“ Rosa,” said her husband, “ I am disturbed about this 
storm.” 

Rosa was a sunshiny wife, with wide brows, laughing 
eyes, a kindly countenance, and a temperament of hope- 
fulness that nerved her against all ordinary troubles, and 
particularly against all such as were borrowed in advance. 

“It will be time enough to worry,” she replied, “ when 
we hear of disaster.” 


50 


CLOSER THAN A BROTHER. 


51 


“ I suppose,” said Oliver, “that this letter is from the 
Wilmerdings ; it has L. W. in the wax. What a beautiful 
seal ! Wilmerding is a man of fine taste, and is giving his 
daughter all the advantages of travel and society ; I hope 
she will be the happier for it. This London post-mark is 
dated eleven days after the Coromandel was to sail from 
Boston ; and yet the Vails are still at sea.” 

Oliver Chantilly’s newspaper, which had so disturbed 
him, contained the following article : 

At 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon, an ominous calm set in and 
prevailed for three hours, during which not a leaf stirred on our city 
oaks, and the water-sheet of the harbor was like glass. 

Table Mountain had been all day wreathed in the familiar fog 
that we are accustomed to style the Table Cloth. 

Just as the sun went down, the clouds gathered from all quarters 
of the sky at once, with rumblings of thunder louder and nearer, and 
with wind from the Southeast which, in half an hour, blew a tornado. 

The roof of the unfinished Episcopal chapel now building on St. 
Vincent street, was wrenched off, and whirled into the churchyard 
with a crash loud enough to wake the dead. 

The scaffolding used in repairing the government buildings was 
crumpled like a house of cards. 

The suburban residence of Sir Richard Wilkinson suffered the 
partial destruction of his costly conservatory, the glass panes of 
which were broken as if struck with a hundred hammers. 

Simultaneously with the tornado came the rain. Capt. Scarborough, 
our oldest hydrographer, says that for forty-seven years there has 
been no rainfall so great within an equal space of time. His rain- 
gauge indicated 1| inches in an hour. 

Great fears are expressed for incoming ships, one of which is 
now overdue, namely, the Coromandel, of Boston, Capt. Lane. 

“Rosa,” said Oliver, throwing aside his journal, “the 
Coromandel must have been in this storm. Her time is up. 
What if she — ” but he dismissed the distressing thought. 

“ They who foresee calamities,” suggested Rosa, “ suffer 
them twice.” 

Just then, dashing into the room, and holding up a 


52 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


cage with a squirrel in it, came Master Philip Chantilly, a 
young American of seven years, the sole child of his 
father and mother. 

“Look, mother,” said the boy, “the rain has got into 
Juju’s cage. It has wet Juju’s fur. Juju looks like a 
drowned rat. Poor Juju ! ” 

Philip was a black-eyed lad, looking like his father, but 
with softer hair and a more intellectual cast of face. He 
was sometimes called King Philip, after his favorite 
American Indian ; but his chief title was Prince. 

“If that ship is coming,” said the boy, “ why don’t she 
come ?” 

To childhood, all hopes are plausible, and all wishes 
possible. 

“If she don’t come,” he added, “I shall get Capt. Scar- 
borough’s spy-glass and draw her here.” 

As the boy had noticed how a lens brought distant ob- 
jects near, he thought this an admirable instrument for 
bringing the Coromandel into port. 

“Rosa,” said Oliver, “I must go and have a talk with 
Capt. Scarborough about this storm.” 

“Let me go, too ! ” petitioned King Philip, with a royal 
plea which was granted on the spot. 

Wherever the sire went, the son went also ; and so 
together they sallied forth into the deluge. 

Oliver Chantilly was a hale and hearty young man, hard- 
ly turned of thirty ; with dark eyes, bushy hair, heavy 
moustache, a manly and fine-looking face ; and with the 
figure and air of one born to command. 

Associated in some business enterprises with Sir Richard 
Wilkinson, who had made the contracts for the public 
works, the young American had prospered in his fortunes, 
had formed a large circle of acquaintances, and had become 
a general favorite. 

The two rain-pelted travelers, after trudging a quarter of 


CLOSER THAI* A BROTHER. 


53 


a mile (Prince Philip choosing the wettest parts of the 
street) entered an antique shop that bore this sign oyer the 
door-way : 

Capt. Johh Scarborough, 

Charts and Nautical Instruments. 

“Captain,” said Oliver Chantilly, “you know I expect 
the Cormandel. The question is, Has she been struck by 
this tiger’s paw ? What think you ? ” 

“You see,” responded Scarborough, “ though the ship’s 
new, yet the captain hain’t Hay One. There was halways 
a crook in that Lane. If not wicious, weak. Some ships 
’ave to be their own captains. Lane ? ’E’s a silk-W sailor ; 
give me the reg’lar tarpaulin kind — brought hup from the 
foe’s!” 

The old hydrographer was variously called Scarborough, 
Scawberry, and Scaw. 

He was an eccentric, opinionated, kindly curmudgeon, 
past three-score years, possessing a gigantic physique which 
time had not shaken, a comely white head full of experi- 
ence and egotism, and a tongue on whose tip dwelt a scor- 
pion. 

It was his chronic habit to swing a rod of criticism 
over seafaring men who made mistakes in their art ; and 
he would snap at an English admiral with the same biting 
teeth with which he would grip a stupid stevedore. 

The old salts in Cape Town used to say that when 
the instrument-vender kept a civil tongue, he was Scar- 
borough ; when he fell away a point or two from decor- 
ous speech, he was Scawberry ; and when the wind of his 
wrath was high enough to set the damnations flying, he 
was Scaw. 

The hydrographer’s variable name was thus a moral ba- 
rometer to show the weather-gauge of his temper. 

But the irascible Capt. Scarborough had never been 


54 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


known to be in a huff with his Royal Highness, King 
Philip, who had just been putting his mischievous fingers 
into a glue-pot, and was otherwise showing a meddlesome- 
ness which the grandfatherly captain egged on and en- 
joyed. 

“ May I look at this sexton ?” asked Philip, who gave a 
too ecclesiastical name to a sextant. 

“Yes, my young hadmiral,” replied old Nautilus, 
“there never was a boy but what liked a wessel, nor hever 
a clever lad but what wanted to be a sailor. Folks said to 
me when I was young, boys will be boys ; but I say to folks 
now, boys will be men. And this boy will be hevery hinch 
a man — eh, Prince ? ” 

Philip was thereupon caught up in the old gentleman’s 
tremendous hands, tossed into the air, and waved about, 
not like a prince, but like a prince’s-feather. 

Capt. Scaw, with many winks, then mysteriously pro- 
posed that his tobacco pipe and wallet, together with half a 
crown of silver money, should be given to Oliver Chantilly, 
the father, for the purchase of Master Philip Chantilly, 
the son, in fee simple, and that the purchased boy should 
thereupon be transferred from his father to be the prop- 
erty of John Scarborough, his heirs, and assigns — albeit the 
aforesaid old gentleman had no heirs and few assigns. 

“No,” replied the boy, addressing the two men sepa- 
rately, “I will have you for my father, and you for my 
grandfather.” - 

“ That decision,” said old Scaw, “ is better than Solo- 
mon’s cuttin’ of the babby in two.” 

Every morning for nearly a week, Oliver, accompanied 
by Philip, made a similar call on John Scarborough, to 
discuss the Coromandel. 

On Saturday Oliver Chantilly picked up his newspaper 
on his door-step, discovered in it an article which he 
dreaded to show to his wife, and, folding the paper and 


CLOSER THAH A BROTHER. 


55 


putting it into his pocket, immediately called Philip, and 
made still another visit to Capt. Scarborough’s shop. 

The paper contained the following article : 

A distressing shipwreck has occurred within two days’ sail of our 
harbor. The American ship Coromandel, 418 tons, Capt. C. K. Lane, 
bound from Boston to this port, encountered on Tuesday evening last 
(Lat 30° 59' S., Long. 14° 17' E.) the thunder-storm which then swept 
over Cape Town with such fearful violence. 

The vessel was struck by lightning, and in a few moments was 
enveloped in flames. Her burning was so rapid that the passengers 
had no time to secure their effects —hardly to save their lives. There 
is a fearful apprehension that three persons perished, namely Dr. 
Rodney Vail, his wife, and her nurse — all Americans. They were left 
behind in the ship, and, having no boat, are supposed to have gone 
down with the wreck. 

The survivors assert that Capt. Lane was somewhat confused, and 
showed the white feather. 

The torrents of cold rain, that accompanied the lightning, drenched 
the escaping boats’ crews and passengers, so that from their exposure, 
their insufficient provisions, and their anxieties, they suffered untold 
miseries ; until at last, after four days of tempest-tossings, they 
reached the Tantalus in the harbor, on board of which they received 
a British welcome. 

Oliver Chantilly, who had read this statement, entered 
the instrument-vender’s shop, and found the old man 
already in a fierce rage at the same intelligence. 

“Think o’ that ship ’avin’ no lightnin’-conductor ! 
Why was there no ’Arris prewentive ? Criminal careless- 
ness, sir. The cat-o-nine is punishment too good — too 
good. But there’s one comfort ; and that is, if any lives 
are lost, the losers will know who to blame for it. That 
Lane never was Hay One. That silk-W sailor ! Hemmit, 
he never was a seaman.” 

Capt. Scaw’s voice went creaking about his shop like a 
new shoe on a sanded floor. 

“ Holiver,” continued the hydrographer, “ I’ll wager my 


56 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


head, neck, and hall, that the Coromandel is afloat at this 
minnit.” 

“ Where ? — show me on this chart.” 

“ Well, about there. But she’s a crawlin’ away from 
there werry fast. She’s a goin’ hoff afore the Southeast 
Trade wind like a devil’s moth before an ’ummin’ bird. 
Holiver, that wessel ain’t gone down : she’s still a woyagin’. 
That man — what’s his name ? — Wail ? — well, he will be a 
sendin’ out bottles from that ship, and some of ’em will be 
picked hup and reported. Wager you a mug o’ hold hale 
on it, sir. I will write to my brother, J ames Scarborough, 
in London, and hask ’im to report the case to the Had- 
miralty.” 

Without waiting to go to his own office, Oliver Chantilly 
borrowed Scarborough’s suggestion of writing, and, im- 
mediately seizing a pen, wrote two letters, one to an ac- 
quaintance in the Navy Department at Washington, and 
the other to Lawrence Wilmerding in London. 

These two letters were so nearly alike in substance that 
one of them will serve here for both : 

Cape Town, Oct. 15, 1847. 

My Dear Wilmerding : — 

I make haste to communicate the enclosed distressing intelligence, 
cut from The Argus of this morning. 

But I don’t believe a lying word of the Coromandel’s sinking — 
mark that ! 

Lane’s opinion was mere inference : and, as one man’s inference is 
as good as another’s, mine is that the rain, not the sea, extinguished 
the tire. 

The captain was a poltroon to abandon his ship instead of cruising 
round her to the last. 

The Coromandel was jaunty and snug (so Rodney wrote me) — meant 
for Arctic search, and made strong as an iron-pot. 

The Willistons of the Harmony Factory loaded her with a cargo 
of their hermetic meats, vegetables, and fruits, in cans and jars, for 
our whaling-market here. 

So take note of two points : — first, if the ship has not gone down. 


CLOSER THAN A BROTHER. 


57 


she is just the water-bucket that could go dancing about the ocean 
for a generation without either cracking a timber, or springing a 
leak ; and next, that she has provender enough to feed a small 
family for a lifetime, and to keep the sea-wolf from ever howling at 
their cabin door. 

For God’s sake, Wilmerding, lay the case at once before the Admi- 
ralty, and ask to be informed of any news picked up in bottle or 
otherwise. 

I have written in a similar strain to the Washington office. 

This goes to-day by the Plover, kindness of Capt. Bewick. 

By joining the hands of the two governments, we can save a drown- 
ing man : — the one man of all the world who, in my opinion, is most 
fit to live in it. 

Distressingly yours, 

Oliver Chantilly. 

Just as Chantilly had finished writing his two letters, 
in came Lane. 

“How are you, Chantilly ?” inquired the shipwrecked 
mariner. 

Lane extended his hand, but Chantilly refused it. 

“No,” said Oliver, “ I decline the honor. The reason? 
Well, sir, on board your ship was my best friend. In his 
peril you deserted him. So I spurn your acquaintance — 
I would prefer to know your dog instead. Trained as I 
have been to a ship, I can inform you that the quarter- 
deck is no place for a coward. Give up seamanship, sir, 
and — raise vegetables. If Vail’s life is lost, or if a hair of 
his head is harmed, you shall answer for it to me — to 
me.” 

“ And to me,” cried Scarborough, with a voice of thun- 
der, lifting his clenched fist as if he would fell the offen- 
der to the floor. 

Lane, turning white as a sheet, immediately left Scar- 
borough’s shop. 

Chantilly also soon left, accompanied by Philip, who 
tightly grasped his father’s hand. 


58 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


So tumultuous was the father’s agitation that he hardly 
noticed this familiar act of the hoy, but moved freely his 
other and unclasped hand in active gestures, soliloquizing 
as follows : 

“No,” said he, “the ship did not go down. She took 
fire not from within hut from without. It was no 
smouldering spark, eating like a worm through the cargo. 
Hardly had the passengers got into the boats before the 
rain began. They were not half a mile away before they 
were under a deluge. This they all admit. And then it 
never occurred to that coward — that deserter — that Lane 
— it never once occurred to him that as lightning could set 
a ship on fire, so rain could put the fire out. There was 
no time for the blaze to get between the decks. So I say 
the rain quenched it. By Heaven, I will make Cape 
Town too hot to hold that milksop Lane longer than he 
can beg a shirt to go home. To think that such a dastard 
should pluck his own worthless self like a brand from the 
burning, and yet leave one of nature’s noblemen like Rod- 
ney Vail to roast to death ! But Rodney is not dead — he 
lives ! 0 Rodney, you were my friend ! Yes, to the ut- 

most which that word means. A friend ! Not every man 
knows what it is to have a friend — no, nor what it is to be 
a friend. Rodney Yail knew both. How often he and I 
talked of friendship and its obligations ! How stren- 
uously he maintained it to be a holy tie ! — an unwritten 
oath ! — an unsworn marriage of man with man ! What a 
friend to his friends was Rodney Yail ! He would have 
made any sacrifice for them — any sacrifice for me. I will 
be worthy of such a friendship, and reciprocate its obliga- 
tions. Rodney Yail is counting at this moment on my 
help — he is looking for it— -he is living in it. I will search 
for him round the world, if need be, till I find him. God 
save my friend ! ” 

Oliver Chantilly, in his absorbed mood, had now 


CLOSER THAN A BROTHER. 


59 


reached the door-step, when his little son, who had been 
perplexed at his father’s mutterings, peremptorily in- 
quired, 

“ Papa, what are you talking about ? ” 

But the answer was interrupted by Mrs. Rosa Chantilly, 
who, on opening the door, held up her two hands with 
cheerful horror, and exclaimed, 

“ Dear me, Philip, every day when you come back from 
Capt. Scarborough’s shop you are besmeared with tar ! 
No, don’t kiss me ; you will stick fast.” 

Whereupon Philip kissed and re-kissed his mother, till 
their two faces did stick fast — yet not with tar. 

But when Mrs. Chantilly was briefly informed by her 
husband of the burning of the Coromandel, and of the 
arrival of the ship’s boats v/ithout the two passengers for 
whose safety her heart was so full of hope, Rosa stood like 
a rose blighted on its stalk. 

“ 0 Mary Yail ! ” she exclaimed, and wrung her hands 
in agony. “ What an excruciating death ! Come here 
Philip, my son ” (and she caught him in her arms), “you 
shall never go on a ship in all your life — no, not even to 
re-visit your native land. My dear husband, why did we 
ever come to this foreign shore to tempt and lure our 
friends to follow us ! — to lead them unwittingly to such a 
dreadful fate ! ” 

Rosa Chantilly buried her face in her hands, like a sin- 
ner confessing guilt. 

“ My sweet Rosa,” said her husband, compassionately, 
his voice melting into softness at the sight of his wife’s 
misery, “I am horror-struck as you are, but then,” he 
added, turning away, clenching his hand, stiffening every 
cord of his frame, and speaking with an emphasis that 
shook him with its strength from head to foot, “ the Cor- 
omandel is not lost ! No, it cannot be. In God s name I 
forbid it ! Fate shall for once yield to justice ! The 


60 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Almighty Ruler of men is witness to my agony for my 
friend, and must give me pity and help. Heaven cannot, 
dare not, be brutal to a helpless man. 0 God, I implore, 
I command, I swear, that Rodney Vail shall be saved !” 

If Oliver Chantilly was half-crazed when he uttered 
these excited words, it was because he had been taught 
from his childhood that “ The kingdom of heaven is taken 
by violence, and the violent take it by force.” 


CHAPTER V. 


THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK. 

O N the day after the excited interview at the instru- 
ment-maker’s shop, between Lane on the one hand, 
and Scarborough and Chantilly on the other, the two latter 
addressed to a British public the following note : — 

To the Editor of the Argus : — 

We beg the favor of your columns to state our conviction, first, 
that the Coromandel did not sink, but is drifting about the sea ; next, 
that her three deserted passengers are alive and may be saved ; and, 
finally, that this community owes it to the sentiment of humanity to 
organize a search expedition at once. 

(Signed) John Scarborough, Hydrographer. 

Oliver Chantilly, Formerly U. S. N. 

The above note, signed by so well-known a citizen as 
Capt. Scarborough, made a stir in Cape Towm, and led 
many persons to express a wish that Admiral Gillingham, 
Commander of the British frigate Tantalus, lying in the 
harbor, would institute a search for the missing ship. The 
Admiral was waited on by a committee with old John 
Scarborough at their head, who looked more like an admiral 
than the admiral himself. Gillingham politely received 
the deputation, but shook his head, and replied that while 
he would be happy to co-operate in any and every scheme 
having for its object the saving of human life, or the res- 
cue of imperiled property, yet he had been sent to Cape 

61 


62 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Colony Tinder strict orders to perform a special duty to the 
Coast Survey, and could not weigh anchor to depart from 
the letter of his instructions. 

“I have already consulted,” he said, “Sir Richard Wil- 
kinson, and find that Sir Richard corroborates my view.” 

So the expedition of search ended before it began. 

A few weeks after this repulse, Scarborough and Chan- 
tilly addressed another joint statement to the public, 
which, before it is inserted here, needs a preliminary ex- 
planation. 

A faith in the Sea Serpent, as in the Flying Dutchman, 
animates the breasts of many mariners of all nations. 

This faith has the authority of Holy Church to support 
it. Good Bishop Pontoppidan of Norway — God rest his 
soul ! — taught the sailors of that rough coast to believe 
solemnly in a mythical creature that goes gliding about in 
storm and fog, lifting its head, shooting forth its tongue, 
coiling its folds, and dragging its swift length along from 
wave to wave. 

On other coasts, people who have no faith in bishops be- 
lieve in Sea Serpents. The evidence in favor of a serpent 
in Paradise has induced a popular credulity concerning a 
serpent in the sea. Certain it is, that the Sea Serpent, 
year after year, and age after age, sails its mystic rounds 
through every sea, harbors in every port, and glides 
through every sailor’s dreams. 

Not to leave any shore unvisited, the Sea Serpent, in the 
autumn of 1847, curved its swan’s neck and flapped its 
mermaid’s tail in the spacious waters of the Cape of Good 
Hope. 

A fortnight after the Coromandel’s disaster, the Argus 
announced the arrival, in Table Bay, of the ship Tocat, 
Capt. Demboll, from Liverpool, who reported that, seven 
days before reaching Cape Town, he discovered, through a 
momentary lifting of a fog, a huge Sea Serpent. 


THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK. 


63 


Whereupon the Argus discoursed as follows : — 

The question, Is there a Sea Serpent ? is revived in Cape Town. 

Capt. Macklin, of the British navy, a year ago reported to the Ad- 
miralty that he encountered a Sea Serpent off Cape Colony coast ; 
but Prof. Owen thought, from the description, that the monster was 
the Great Antarctic Seal. Capt. Samuel Harriman, of the bark Butter- 
fly, outward bound from this port eight months ago, discovered, 
about a week after sailing, what he thought to be the Sea Serpent ; 
but when he approached it with a boat’s crew, he found it to be a 
mass of rotten weed, slimy and unfragrant, which the discoverers did 
not care to put between the wind and their nobility. Both these sup- 
posed Sea Serpents were seen about seven days out from this port. It 
is singular that the newly-arrived Capt. Demboll now states that when 
he was about the same length of time from Cape Town, he saw a 
great creature, which he supposes to have been a mammoth marine 
animal, serpentine in form. 

Here then we have no less than three Sea Serpents, — first, Mack- 
lin’s; second, Harriman’s; and third, Demboll’s. But as Macklin’s 
was long ago thought to be a basking seal, and as Harriman’s was 
found to be a rotting weed, so Demboll’s may now prove to be, if not 
one or the other of these, then a floating tree, or a stray raft, or a 
mass of debris . 

In short, the Sea Serpent is a twin to the Snakes of Iceland, and 
does not exist. 

On the day after the above article was published in the 
Argus, that journal contained the subjoined statement from 
Chantilly and Scarborough : 

To the Editor of the Argus : — 

Without casting any reflection on the intelligence of Capt. Dem- 
boll, we nevertheless believe that the huge and mysterious object 
which he saw in Lat. 29° 35', Long. 11° 21', was not the Sea Serpent 
(whatever that creature may be), but was the drifting wreck of the 
Coromandel. 

Capt. Lane abandoned this ship, containing on board three hu- 
man beings, for whose lives (if they shall be lost) he will be justly 
responsible. 

But not Capt. Lane alone. He will divide the responsibility with 
a British Admiral, who, under color of strict adherence to instruc- 


64 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


tions, is violating the chief duty and function of a true sailor, which 
is to strain every nerve, and to run every risk, for the rescue of a 
wrecked crew within bis reach. 

This high officer of the navy admits that, in all human probability, 
the Coromandel was not destroyed by the fire ; that her hulk may 
therefore wander an indefinite time at sea ; and that she and her 
three passengers (one of whom, at least, would make intelligent 
exertions to keep the ship from water-logging) are probably, even at 
this late day, in nearer neighborhood to this port than to any other 
point of land. 

We therefore appeal once more to Admiral Gillingham to institute 
a search for the wanderers, whose last known position we believe to 
have been correctly given by Capt. Demboll, on the mistaken sup- 
position that the wrecked Coromandel was a Sea Serpent. 

(Signed) 


John Scarborough. 
Oliver Chantilly. 


As soon as the appellants found their appeal without ef- 
fect, Oliver Chantilly instituted a series of inquiries among 
newly-arrived shipmasters as to whether they had seen, 
since the storm, anything that resembled either a Sea Ser- 
pent or a wrecked ship. 

He also wrote letters to the governments of all the mari- 
time nations, stating the particulars of the catastrophe, 
and requesting to be informed of any messages that might 
be picked up from the Coromandel by American, French, 
English, or Danish ships. 

He studied log-books, maps, and charts. He collected a 
library of pamphlets, reports, travels, and various memo- 
randa illustrating the winds and currents of the sea, and 
searched these and the whole history of shipwrecks for 
suggestions of discovery and rescue. 

These efforts cost him many months of anxious thought. 

“I have been marking down on this map,” said he to 
Scarborough one day, “ the customary routes of ships on 
the South Atlantic. These red lines mark the courses 


THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK. 


65 


from the Cape of Good Hope to Europe ; and the blue, 
the return voyages. These black lines are the routes from 
the Cape to the United States ; and the yellow, the return. 
These occasional and wayward green lines are the whalers. 
Now notice what a great central basin in this South Atlan- 
tic ocean — what a wide and desolate space here — all these 
lines utterly shun and never approach. All ships avoid 
the centre of this sea. Here in this spacious region lies a 
waste wilderness of waters, covering an area as large as the 
half of Europe, into which no ship enters — unless driven a 
thousand miles out of her way. It is a place of calms. 
Now suppose the Southeast Trade Wind and the Great 
Ocean Current, both acting together, should carry the Cor- 
omandel into this mid-desert of the South Atlantic, and 
should then leave her there ? How would she ever get out ? 
What would she do hut drift slowly hither and thither, 
round and round, like a leaf on a mill-pond ? I tell you, 
Scarborough, she might float there year after year like a 
water-weed, and never be discovered by any ship, and never 
get any nearer to the shore.” 

“ Yes,” said old Scaw, shaking his head in the negative, 
while meaning the affirmative, “that’s the solemn fact.” 

Oliver Chantilly, with a strange tenacity of hope, never 
once permitted himself to consider the ship destroyed— 
only cast away on an ocean of calms. 

“ I see the Coromandel” said he, “afloat in my mind’s 
eye— rolling and drifting ! And I see Eodney Yail on 
board of her, appealing to me for help ! ” 

Oliver Chantilly, seeing such visions, which never faded 
from his fancy, busied his mind with the Coromandel for 
weeks, for months, and for years. 

How long, how slow, and how inscrutable can be one 
man’s fate against the whole world’s finding out ! 

At length Philip, a sedate youth, grew old enough, not 
only to share his father’s sorrow for the loss of the Coro- 


66 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


mandel, but to be partaker of his day-dream of her final 
safety. 

The younger Chantilly possessed an ideal and imagina- 
tive temperament, and was just the person to whom the 
vision of the far-off, tempest-tossed ship, forever wander- 
ing over the waves without coming to land, would be full 
of allurement and fascination. 

The strange life and romantic adventures of the doomed 
company, as Philip fashioned the possible story to himself, 
were to him more vivid and thrilling than any written tale. 

Philip not only caught his father’s animating faith in 
the ship’s survival, but as the son could not naturally feel 
so much distressing anxiety as his father did concerning 
those on board (since the young man had never seen one 
of them), there was nothing but pleasure in Philip’s mus- 
ings over the wind-blown and never-anchoring barque. 

The Coromandel became to the young dreamer a far 
more real and heroic ship than any solid man-of-war in 
the Coast Survey. 

His faith in her final re-appearance amazed his fellow- 
students and comrades in Cape Town. 

“Philip!” said one of them, “what you see is the 
floating Isle of St. Brandon ; it is a cheat of the mind ; it 
does not exist in fact.” 

But Philip calmly replied, 

“ That castaway ship — that wandering argosy of souls — 
is, to me, a Holy Grail to be sought and found. The idea 
of seeking for her has determined me to be a sailor, so 
that I may spend my life on the sea, in the expectation of 
rescuing that wreck. The ocean has haunted me from 
childhood, because the Coromandel floats on it.” 

Years came and passed, yet without tidings of the wan- 
dering craft. 

“ It seems to me,” remarked Sir Richard Wilkinson one 
day to Oliver Chantilly in the spring of 1854, “ that you 


THE HEEDLE IH THE HAYSTACK. 


67 


ought now to discharge your mind of this phantom barque 
that sails about only in your dreams. Your friends grieve 
to see you looking so careworn about it. Even if the Cor- 
omandel was not wholly destroyed by fire, yet American 
ships are not strong ; and this doomed craft, 

“ ‘ Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,’ 

must long ago have gone like a plummet to the depths of 
the sea. In due time,” he added, “ the whole ocean’s floor 
will be paved with American ships.” 

Sir Richard had a very small appreciation of anything 
American, except American slavery, and its product, Amer- 
ican cotton, from which he received annual dividends 
from seven American plantations. 

“ My dear Sir Richard,” replied Oliver, who always 
took pains to maintain his individuality in presence of his 
titled associate, “ I was brought up in the American navy ; 
and in that navy we revere the dying words of a hero who 
said, * Don’t give up the ship !’ and I don’t give up the 
Coromandel.” 

“Ah,” retorted the baronet, who had sat in Parlia- 
ment, and who knew how to turn a reply. “ That, I be- 
lieve, was in the affair of the Chesapeake and the Shannon, 
was it not ?” 

“Yes, Sir Richard.’ 7 

“ Captain Lawrence, I think ? ” 

“Yes, Sir Richard.” 

“ That hero is said to have bravely exclaimed, f Don’t 
give up the ship ? ’ ” 

“ Yes, Sir Richard.” 

“ And yet his ship was immediately given up, notwith- 
standing ? — was it not ? ” 

This was unexpected by Chantilly, and it irritated 
him : — all the more because there had been a gradual cool- 
ness growing up between Sir Richard and himself on 


68 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


American questions, particularly on the question of 
slavery. 

Meanwhile, Oliver had talked with Rosa about a return 
to America ; a project which they were on the point of 
carrying into effect. 

Then in the summer of 1857, to the sudden surprise of 
everybody, came Rosa Chantilly’s death. 

This lady had been on a sailing excursion, and was the 
life of the party ; among whom, for spirit and vivacity, 
she reigned supreme ; but, on the next day, a sudden fever 
threw her down 


“Ona couch of fire/’ 


and in less than a week she died. 

To her husband and son, not the falling of the South- 
ern Cross from the sky could have been more unexpected. 

There are some people so blooming and healthful that 
they never suggest a thought of their mortality. Rosa 
Chantilly had always been one of these. But she with- 
ered while yet full of the morning dews of life. 

“0 God,” cried her husband, clenching his hands, 
“ this is more than I can bear ! ” 

During the first night after her death, his hair turned 
from black to white. 

The Bishop of ]Natal conducted the funeral. 

After the body had been laid in the earth, the fresh 
mound was entirely covered with roses — sweet memorials 
of her name ! — cast thereon by a company of orphan chil- 
dren in whom she had taken a tender interest. 

The white-haired husband was led away from the grave- 
yard almost in distraction. 

During the first three days and nights after the burial, 
Oliver Chantilly neither ate nor drank ; neither slept nor 
wept ; neither read the many letters of sympathy ad- 


THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK. 


69 


dressed to him from families in Cape Town, nor admitted 
any person to an interview with him save only Philip. 

The bereaved husband spent most of this time in his 
wife’s deserted room. 

Philip, for his father’s sake, had to paralyze his own 
tongue and make his grief speechless. Not once did he 
open the subject for conversation. 

The most scalding of all tears are those that flow inward 
through the soul, not outward down the cheek. 

The silent young man, finding that a mist was filling his 
eyes, brushed his brave hand across the wet lids, and said 
with a kinglier spirit than Canute’s, “ Thus far shalt thou 
come and no farther ! ” and the salt waves obeyed. 

Bearing his burden and not groaning under it, bleeding 
from his heart’s core yet not showing the wound, Philip 
stood like a strong tower, and his father fled to him for 
refuge against his own distracted self. 

The son was a father to his father. 

“ Philip,” said Oliver about a fortnight afterward, “ this 
home is in ruins ; this house is a sepulchre ; this colony has 
become once again a strange land. It is impossible for me, 
in a moment, to quit so many unfinished tasks as I have set 
my ambitious hands to — an ambition that now is paralyzed 
forever — but I have told Sir Richard that I shall take the 
first honorable opportunity to disentangle myself and re- 
turn to my own country. Events are tending toward a 
civil war in the United States. There will be a career for 
you in your native land. I propose that you sail for New 
York in the Challenge on the 27th (that’s three weeks from 
now), and, on arriving, go to Annapolis and be entered at 
the Naval Academy.” 

The young man’s eyes flashed at the welcome sugges- 
tion. 

(( It will realize one of my day-dreams ! ” he exclaimed. 
“ It is something like the plan I had formed in my own 


70 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


mind — only I had not thought of fixing so early a date of 
departure. But the sooner the better.” 

Father and son struck hands at once, and the plan was 
settled. 

One day, about a week afterward, when the English mail 
arrived, Philip, on looking at the letters received at his 
father’s office, discovered one addressed to his mother. 

“Who is it,” thought he, “that writes to her, not 
knowing she is dead ? My father must not see this. It 
would lacerate his heart.” 

Philip opened and read the following letter from Lucy 
Wilmerding : — 


( Saltzburg, in the Tyrol. 

1 • April 3, 1858. 

Mrs. Rosa Chantilly: — 

Dear Madame : — You will not expect this letter— from a stranger, 
and a strange place. 

I brought from America three photographs of our dear lost friend 
Mrs. Yail. Two of these I still possess. To-day, in putting them 
back into my portmanteau, I happened to think that possibly you 
might not have any record of her face — that lovely face ! — and so I 
take the liberty to divide my treasures with you. 

In several of Mrs. Vail’s letters to me (0 how long ago they were 
written !) she spoke of you most lovingly ; and I am sure, if you 
loved her only half so well as I did, this picture of her will bring 
tears to your eyes. 

She was only seventeen when this was taken. How young she 
looks, and how beautiful ! She had such long, black hair, such per- 
fect features, and such a lovely white skin ! 

My heart to-day has been full of memories of her, — all day long. 
The brilliant scenes through which I have been passing in these old 
countries, and the daily pleasures I enjoyed through my father’s 
kindness ; — all these sometimes take a gloomy shade when I think of 
that dear woman and her mysterious fate. 

I cannot believe that she is dead, but only shipwrecked and cast 
away. 

Shall we ever again behold her on earth ? 

What sufferings she must have undergone 1 — what wasting of her 


THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK. 


71 


frail body ! — what famine and disease ! — what agony and anguish of 
soul ! 

Her wan white face comes to me at night, and I see her holding 
out her thin, pale hands imploring me for help. 

Sometimes I think of her as a distracted maniac ! — dwelling on 
some wild rock, alone with beast and bird ! At other times I have 
felt that by some strange Providence — by the kind hand of Him who 
doeth all things well — she would yet be restored to us in the flesh. 

Whatever be her fate, I know you will prize the picture for the 
sake of the original, whom we both equally mourn. 

Yours, in this common grief, 

Lucy Wilmerding. 


Philip, after reading this letter, fell to a perusal of the 
pictured face. 

“ What a classic and lovely head !” he exclaimed. “It 
is fine enough for a cameo. Just think of the sea attempt- 
ing to drown such a divine creature ! ” 

Philip was quite enraptured with his prize. It was a 
small vignette — just a head. Over and over again he 
looked at it, and being a lover of art and beauty, admired 
it as it deserved. 

“This young woman,” he said to himself, “was my 
mother’s friend. They were school-girls together. One 
of them is now in her grave, and perhaps the other dies 
daily a living death.” 

Whereupon, actuated by a fancy which, had he under- 
taken to explain it, he would have called loyalty to his 
mother’s memory, he went to a jeweler’s, and had the 
vignette set in a small locket, which he hung like a charm 
to his watch-chain. 

The whole proceeding pleased him greatly ; pleased 
him, he hardly knew why ; pleased him so mysteriously 
that, in order to maintain this charming sense of mystery, 
he kept the letter and locket a secret from his father. 

A son rarely tells his heart’s secret to his sire. 


72 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


The next mail from England brought a letter to J ohn 
Scarborough from his twin brother J ames. 

It enclosed a communication sufficiently exciting to 
rouse old Scaw to a high pitch of feeling, and to set his 
bushy hair wild with electricity. 

He sought out the Chantillys — to whom, with a voice 
more raspish than ever — its harsh music guided by the baton 
of his doubled fist — he made the following harangue : 

“ Demmit,” said he, — which was the whole extent of the 
captain’s profanity, — demmit, gentlemen, hold men for 
counsel, young men for haction. How, except for its bein’ 
contrary to the law, I would ’ang both Hadmiral Gilling- 
ham and Capt. Lane. Eead that, sir.” 

The old captain took a seat in a Chinese chair, unbut- 
toned his collar, pricked up a palm-leaf fan, and fanned 
himself into a glowing heat. 

“ 0 great God in Heaven ! ” exclaimed Oliver Chantilly, 
who had meanwhile been reading the letter. “ Philip, my 
son, read that — read it aloud — let my ears sit in judgment 
on my eyes whether or not I have read it aright.” 

Philip then read aloud the following letter from James 
Scarborough to his brother John : 

j Grosvenor Square, London, 

1 Aug. 31, 1858. 

My Dear Brother:— 

I am in hourly expectation of a crash that will ruin me, and will 
bring shame to the name 1 bear. 

But whatever ill- tidings I report to you concerning myself, I have 
a piece of glad news for you. 

When you told me, in your last letter, what would be the greatest 
joy that you could experience in your old age, I little thought that I, 
who am about to retire into darkness, would be the means of shedding 
on you the very sunbeam for which you have so long waited — and 
waited not in vain. 

The enclosed paper will make you a happy man. 

Your wretched brother, 

James Scarborough. 


THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK. 


73 


“ I do not understand this,” replied Philip, sedately, to 
Capt. Scarborough. “You have never informed me of 
your brother’s troubles.” 

Capt. Scarborough, with quivering lip, simply re- 
marked, 

“No, Philip ; my brother never told me of them him- 
self. I do not understand them. It’s hall a puzzle. But 
read the postscript.” 

Philip read as follows : 

I annex a copy of a letter from the British consul at Bordeaux to 
the Admiralty in London. It was obtained by me to-day through the 
politeness of Sir Thomas Poinsett. It will appear in the Times to- 
morrow. J. S. 


(COPY.) 

j Office of the British Consulate 
( at Bordeaux, August 27, 1858. 

To the Admiralty : — 

Agreeably to instructions from the Foreign Office to report any 
tidings of missing ships and crews, I have the honor to announce that 
a square glass jar, with a small neck, hermetically sealed, painted 
with vermilion stripes, evidently to attract attention in the water, 
and covered with the moss of a long voyage, was picked up yesterday 
on this coast near the fishing hamlet of Drosante. 

The sealed jar had been opened before I saw it, and opened without 
care. The writing inside was illegible in parts, and could not be fully 
deciphered till brought out by chemical helps. 

The following words and letters were then made distinctly visi- 
ble : 

Lat. 27° 41' S.; Long. 1 . . . . 

1851 Sunday May 6 

Ship Corom I, 418 tons, Capt. L burnt off Cape Colony 

Coast Oct 1847 abando. ..d by Capt. and Creiv, leaving on board 

Rodney Vail , Mary Vail , his wife, and R. . .Bamley, nurse , all of 

S [ here a break]. . .extinguished by rain. Hull not destro. . .Ship 

still afloat. Cargo of preserved meats, fruits, and vege in good 

order. Barbara Vail , born on board, now aged three years. All well, 
and waiting in hope. 

{Signed,) Rodney Vail, M. D., aged 29. 


74 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


In transmitting the above intelligence to the Admiralty, it gives 
me great pleasure to reflect that it is not the customary tale of a ship 
about to sink and a crew about to perish. 

(Signed,) C. M. Cholmondely, Consul. 


The human mind is a strange instrument. One might 
suppose that the receipt of this information by Capt. Scar- 
borough would have realized to him the joy which he 
said the discovery of the Coromandel would give his aged 
breast. But, on the contrary, he was now filled with a 
half comical rage, through his swelling indignation against 
Lane. 

“ Not to be ’ung ? ” he cried. “ If not ’ung, then, dem- 
mit, gentlemen, ’e should be tarred and feathered. ” 

But the welcome news had no such angry effect on the 
Chantillys. They were overjoyed. Rosy hopes burst upon 
them as with an auroral glory. Happy blood beat in their 
pulses. They embraced each other with tears. 

“ This is the first impulse of life which I have had since 
your mother died,” said Oliver to Philip. 

“ Come with me,” cried Scaw ; “let us go at once to 
Sir Richard’s office- I want to flaunt this letter in his 
face. I want to taunt him with it to his teeth.” 

The three went — the Chantillys against their wish ; but 
they were drawn forcibly by the irresistible energy of 
Scaw. 

Sir Richard happened to be closeted in his counting- 
room with Capt. Lane and Admiral Gillingham. 

“How is it,” asked Oliver of Scaw, just before entering, 
“ how is it that Lane has of late become so familiar with 
Sir Richard ? ” 

“ They ’ave some American business hon ’and,” an- 
swered Scaw. 

A coldness had previously existed between certain mem- 
bers of this accidental company, so that an air of formality 


THE HEEDLE IK THE HAYSTACK. 


75 


hung over the interview. That is, except on the part of 
Scaw. He was too warm a man by nature to be cold if he 
tried. Some people freeze their victims ; others burn 
them. Scaw employed the fire process. 

The news contained in the letter had not yet been 
divulged. 

Capt. Scaw went as hungrily after Lane as a cat goes 
after a mouse. 

“I want to settle my score with you to-day, hafore you 
sail to-morrow. ” 

“John Scarborough ! ” retorted Lane, angrily, “ is there 
never to be an end to the feud between us ? ” 

“Yes, Lane, hend it now, if you dare.” 

“ What will end it ?” 

“Capt. Lane,” said Scarborough, “it’s nigh a dozen 
years since the Coromandel was lost. The witnesses of 
the conflagration are scattered over the wide world. 
You are the honly one ’ere now ; and seem’ as ’ow nobody 
could contradict you, jou ’av been a sayin’ for these 
last three years, hoff an hon, that you saw that wessel 
go down — that she went down before your werry heyes.” 

“So she did,” said Lane, seeking what he thought a 
safe refuge in an old lie. 

“ Now, ” said Scaw, “ hafter ’avin so hoften said it by 
word o’ mouth, I dare you to settle it beyond dispute by 
givin’ it to me in your ’and-writin’.” 

Sir Richard’s face lighted up at this suggestion, and he 
inquired of Scarborough, 

“ Will such a statement satisfy you ? If so, I hope it 
may be given. Write it, Capt. Lane, and make oath to it.” 

Sir Richard wanted this writing for his own particular 
use. Such a piece of sworn testimony by Capt. Lane, cer- 
tifying as an eye-witness to the sinking of the ship, would 
be a perpetual reply to all further appeals to Sir Richard’s 
pocket for assistance in searching for the Coromandel. 


76 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


So the baronet seized the golden opportunity of eliciting 
such a final statement, accompanied with Scarborough’s 
verbal pledge to be satisfied with it. 

It was written, signed, and sworn to by Lane. 

“ Give me that hinstrument,” said Scaw, and he put it 
into his pocket. 

“Now, Philip, my lad, my bonny lad, read the con- 
sul’s letter, and let us see what these gentlemen will say 
now.” 

Then Philip, to the surprise of Sir Richard, to the 
bewilderment of Admiral Gillingham, and to the conster- 
nation of Capt. Lane, read the British consul’s communi- 
cation announcing the Coromandel’s safety. 

Sir Richard, whose eyes kindled with angry light at 
having been taken in his own snare, asked of Scar- 
borough, 

“What was the object, sir, of your inducing Capt. 
Lane to swear to a statement which you knew to be 
false ? ” 

“ I’ll tell you what’s the hobject, sir,” replied Scaw, 
turning from Sir Richard and speaking directly to Lane. 
“ The hobject is this, sir. You coward, sir ” (addressing 
Lane), “if you hever come back to this port again, sir, I 
will publish this haffidayy, sir, and show you to be a self- 
confessed liar, sir, hunder your own ’and and seal, sir, and 
that’s the hobject, sir ! Gentlemen, good-day ; demmit, 
good-day. ” 

Scarborough, taking the two Chantillys each by the 
arm, marshalled them with friendly yiolence instantly out 
of the counting-room. 

On getting into the street, old Scaw, puffing like a por- 
poise, remarked, 

“ This town has warious breeds o’ wermin’ in it ; 
hut it has one crawlin’ reptile to-day what will never be 
seen on these streets hafter to-morrow ; and that’s Lane ; 


THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK. 77 

he’ll never wenture back to this port — no, — no, never — 
demmit, no.” 

It was only after Oapt. Scaw had thus gratified his whim 
of vengeance that he found any room in his mind for 
pleasant thoughts of the Coromandel ; hut, having suc- 
cessfully rid himself of his spleen, he conducted his two 
friends to his shop, which he entered out of breath ; and 
there, without stopping to rest his aged limbs, he imme- 
diately proceeded to dance a laborious and rheumatic jig on 
the sanded floor. 

This done, a long talk ensued about the Coromandel — 
her burning, her safety, her passengers, her wanderings, 
her past history, and her possible fate. 

Philip spoke in particular of Barbara. 

“ What’s her hage ? ” asked Scaw. 

“ Three years,” interposed Oliver, “that is, she was 
three years when the paper was written ; hut it was written 
eight years ago ; that would make her eleven now.” 

“Bless me,” observed Scaw, who was a bachelor, “how 
children do grow up around us ! It’s but t’other day when 
Philip here was a boy. Yet now he’s taller than his 
father.” 

Oliver’s hand, in which he held the letter of welcome 
news, trembled under the weight of the paper that con- 
tained it. 

“ Think,” said he, “ of a babe horn to a family in such 
a situation ! Think of the life they must all live on that 
tempest- tossed ship ! Think of Rodney Vail wasting his 
fine genius on hoard that drifting wreck ! Is there no such 
thing as Providence, that it can thus permit one of God’s 
great souls to be the sport of fate and chance, while thou- 
sands of common men walk forward on the solid earth, by 
green and pleasant paths, to peace, comfort, honor, and old 
age ? By Heaven, Philip, if that man’s life ever comes to 
be known to the world — if he is saved at last and can re- 


78 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


port himself to mankind — I believe it will be found that on 
bis little stage of action — on his narrow deck — in a lonely 
sea — unhelped except by himself — be has played the part 
of one of the world’s heroes ! I would give the richest drop 
of my heart’s blood to grasp him by the hand to-day. 
Philip, you and I must find and save that man — otherwise 
we live in vain.” 

The astonishing energy with which Oliver Chantilly ut- 
tered these words revealed to Philip the cheering fact that 
his father’s native (but latterly dormant) spirit was now in 
good earnest rekindling its wonted fire. 

“I wonder,” thought Philip, “what the child looks 
like,” and he dangled his locket containing her mother’s 
portrait. 

Philip, who had small chance of ever seeing Barbara, 
was nevertheless curious about her face. Even blind men, 
when they talk of maids, inquire concerning their looks. 
“ Perhaps,” said Philip, willing to think well of the young 
creature, “perhaps she is like her mother. If so, she is a 
beauty.” 

“ As you say,” remarked Scaw to Oliver, “ it’s a strange 
place for the bringin’ hup of a young gerril. ” 

“ If that child,” said Oliver, “is like either of her par- 
ents, and especially if she is like both, she is the most pre- 
cious pearl the sea ever held.” 

Philip once again bent down his head and mused. 

“She is Neptune’s daughter,” said Oliver, classi- 
cally. 

“ Per’aps she is a Wenus,” observed Scaw, unclassically. 

Philip whispered to himself, “ She is a water-nymph — 
a nereid — a mermaid. No, she is simply a child. And I 
think I see her standing in her childish beauty on the 
ship’s deck, her head crowned with sea-grass, and her hair 
blown about in the wind.” 

Philip kept incessantly dangling the locket, as if asking 


THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK. 


79 


it for confirmation of the image which he had conjured 
up within his mind. 

As the most beautiful faces are those that are never seen, 
but only dreamed of, or sighed for, so the young heroine 
of the Coromandel, dwelling at a blue and purple distance, 
appeared to Philip the sweetest image of a young maid’s 
face that ever was enshrined in a young man’s soul. 


CHAPTER VI. 


IN THREE PARTS OF THE WORLD. 

T HE message thrown overboard in a glass jar from the 
Coromandel, and picked up at Drosante, was chronicled 
in the London journals of September 1st, 1858. 

“ It is as strange a story as Sindbad the Sailor,” said Law- 
rence Wilmerding to his daughter Lucy. 

“ 0,” said Lucy to herself, a dozen times during the day, 
on reading the news over and over again, “this happiness 
is almost too great to bear ! Dear, dear Mary ! So you 
did not go down in the storm ! I knew it — I never could 
think of you as dead ! And you have a daughter — a little 
ocean-bird for your motherly wings to brood over in your 
wandering nest ! 0 how romantic a tale !” 

On the evening of that day, at a social company in that 
city, this interesting intelligence was a theme of animated 
talk. 

The company consisted of a few ladies and gentlemen 
who had met at the invitation of Mr. Wilmerding and his 
daughter — most of them having ridden for this purpose 
into the city from their country retreats (for London was 
then out of “season”) — to exchange congratulations on 
the laying of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable. 

It was the wire of 1858. 

Mr. Wilmerding, a stockholder in that costly enterprise, 
had ascertained that a public celebration of the event 

80 


IN THREE PARTS OF THE WORLD. 


81 


would be held in New York on the night of September 
1st, and he determined to re-echo this festivity by a soiree 
on the same night in London. 

Lucy Wilmerding’s evening company was sure to be a 
success. Her father’s wealth, her personal attractions, 
and, in addition, two noticeable incidents in her career — 
all taken together combined to give her an uncommon 
prestige. These two incidents were : — first, she had co- 
operated, three years before, with a few eminent English- 
women, in founding a children’s hospital in Surrey ; and 
second, on the breaking out of the Crimean war, she had 
gone on a mission of mercy to the wounded at Scutari ; 
both which facts, occurring in a young American woman’s 
life, could not but win for her the love of her English 
friends. Lucy Wilmerding had thus become endeared to 
a wide circle of people in London, some of whom ranked 
high in literature, politics, and society. 

It was of these friends that her evening gathering of 
September 1st, 1858, in Grosvenor Square, was brilliantly 
composed, in honor of the Atlantic Telegraph. 

“ And so, my dear Miss Wilmerding,” said Sir Thomas 
Poinsett of the Admiralty, “you have heard from the 
missing ship.” 

“ Yes, Sir Thomas, and it is the best news I ever heard 
in all my life.” 

“ Does this rekindle your faith that the Coromandel will 
at last be rescued, and all well ? ” 

“Yes, Sir Thomas ; is it not reasonable to expect it ? ” 

“ It seems,” he replied, shaking his half-doubtful head, 
“it seems like hoping against hope; and yet if the Coro- 
mandel has stood up already so long against destruction, 
why not a little longer ? ” 

“You will admit,” said Lucy, “that the ship’s safety, 
even though marvelous, is not so great a marvel as the 
event we celebrate to-night.” 


82 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“True,” replied the courtly baronet, “the Greeks, you 
know, enumerated seven wonders of the world ; but 
there are now seventy times seven thousand, and they are 
multiplying every hour ; — the last, which we are to-night 
commemorating, being the greatest of all.” 

“ Sir Thomas,” said Lucy, addressing him with appeal- 
ing earnestness, “now that you have the ocean-telegraph, 
I want you to send by it to America the joyful news from 
the Coromandel.” 

“ That news,” said he, “was despatched to Newfound- 
land early this morning, before daybreak.” 

“ And will it certainly reach America ? ” 

“ Yes, why not ?” he replied. “ It was the 312th mes- 
sage. 311 had already gone before it — all safe and sound. 
Why not this one ? ” 

“ And in a single moment ? ” asked Lucy, with the in- 
credulity that pervaded all minds, in those days, concern- 
ing the strange submarine tell-tale wire. 

“ Yes,” replied Sir Thomas, “in less than any time at 
all ! Our messages westward outspeed the sun. They go 
before they are sent ; they get there before they start. 
For instance, the news of the Coromandel, which was 
despatched this morning, will reach there yesterday ! ” 

Just then, the venerable Mr. James Scarborough 
addressed Lucy, saying, 

“ Miss Wilmerding, I hardly know whether to congrat- 
ulate you most because the Cable is safe beneath the sea, 
or because the Coromandel is safe above it.” 

“I am best pleased,” said Lucy, “with the news from 
the long-lost ship ; but the two events are a double bless- 
ing, especially as the one has already informed the world 
of the other.” 

When Mr. Scarborough turned away from Lucy, she 
was struck with something sorrowful in his face and air. 

“ Papa,” she asked, snatching a moment to speak to 


IN THREE PARTS OF THE WORLD. 


83 


her father, “ what is the matter with your friend Mr. 
Scarborough yonder ? He seems ill at ease.” 

“ My child, he lias little spirit to rejoice to-night either 
oyer the the Cable or the Coromandel, for he has had 
some heavy pecuniary losses, and is threatened with 
more.” 

Mr. Buckminister, an English capitalist, was talking at 
the opposite end of the room with Mr. Wilmerding: — 
the topic being neither the ship nor the wire, but Mr. 
Scarborough and his losses. 

“ Is it going hard with him ? ” asked Buckminister. 

“1 fear so,” replied Wildmerding, “for he has been 
telling me that, in addition to other doubtful speculations, 
he is deep in gold mines. Deep, do I say ? No, not very 
deep. At least, not so deep as the gold is, for he has not 
gone deep enough to find that. James Scarborough means 
well, but lacks balance.” 

“But,” interposed Buckminister, inquiringly, “he is 
honest ? ” 

“ I hope so,” rejoined Wilmerding. “ Nearly every man 
will pay his debts if he has the money. But James Scar- 
borough is hard pressed. He is borrowing from every in- 
stitution that will lend ; he is sweeping up every guinea 
that he can gather — trust-funds and all ; and I fear that 
you and I will suffer through his folly.” 

“ Look at these faces ! ” said Lucy, stepping up to Mr. 
Buckminister and handing him two small photographs, — 
one of a man, and the other of a woman. Lucy had been 
showing these little pictures to her guests. They were 
early portraits of Dr. Vail and his bride. 

“ Well,” said Mr. Buckminister, turning to Capt. Gil- 
lespie of the British navy, with whom he had just joined 
in a scrutiny of the pictured countenances, “ it needs 
no great gift of discerning human nature to detect at a 
glance that one of these persons is sweet and lovely, and 


84 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


the other strong and heroic. Let me ask,” said he, turning 
to Lawrence Wilmerding, “ what kind of a man was Dr. 
Vail when you knew him ? ” 

“That was in my early days,” replied Wilmerding. 
“ He was the ringleader of us all — the chief master of all 
sports and toils. He was always drawing maps of bridges, 
piers, monuments, and various colossal works. He could 
throw a fly at a salmon to please a Highlander. He confronted 
nature as one confronts the Sphinx, demanding its secrets. 
He ate of all the trees of knowledge, defying the prohibi- 
tions. He took the sunbeam in one hand, the thunderbolt 
in the other, and cast them both into the crucible for 
analysis. That is, he was a man of genius — a philosopher ; 
which, to a practical business-man like myself, is perhaps 
another way of saying that he was a little crazy.” 

Capt. Gillespie, turning to Lucy, said, 

“ This photograph, I am told, represents the lady while 
she was a teacher of yours ? ” 

“Yes,” replied Lucy ; “ we called her the little Puritan. 
She was not directly descended from the Mayflower, but 
had all the fragrance of that word in her character. If 
there are saints on earth, she is one of them ; but she was 
such a fragile creature, how could she have lived through 
shipwreck and storm ? And yet my heart tells me that I 
shall see her once more. Captain, what is your opinion 
about the Coromandel ? ” 

Capt. Gillespie replied, 

“ The probabilities are easily summed up. If the people 
on board died from starvation, then the ship, with no one 
to work the pumps, gradually became water-logged, and 
long ago went to the bottom. But if the provisions have 
held out, and if Rodney Yail has preserved his bodily vigor 
and his reasoning faculties, he has easily kept the ship 
afloat. The cargo was known to be canned provisions. 
Such articles were at first an experiment, but they have 


in’ THREE PARTS OF THE WORLD. 


85 


since proved a success. On the assumption that the pro- 
visions have held out, and that the lives of the wanderers 
have been preserved — and both these are reasonable prob- 
abilities — I believe we shall hear of the ship’s ultimate res- 
cue.” 

Lucy caught the captain’s hand and thanked him warmly 
for his cheering argument. 

The two photographs, after passing the round of all the 
company, were handed back to Lucy. 

“ There is one picture,” said she, “that I would rather 
possess than any of Raphael’s cherubs.” 

“ What is that ?” asked Capt. Gillespie. 

“ It is a picture,” said Lucy, “ which no artist has had 
a chance to paint. I mean the face of Mary Vail's daugh- 
ter, born on board that ill-fated ship — the face of Baby Bar- 
bara, Child Barbara, Maiden Barbara ! 0, how I long to 
see her, for I know she is a sunbeam. She is of no com- 
mon parentage ; she must possess no ordinary beauty.” 

Late in the evening came Mr. Elbridge Saunderson, who 
had given many weeks of personal attention to the manu- 
facture of the self-acting brakes which had just been suc- 
cessfully applied in reeling off the great Cable into the sea. 

“ My friend,” said he, whispering confidentially to Mr. 
Wilmerding, “ the news is bad.” 

“Why, what has happened ?” 

“ The Atlantic Cable is dead.” 

“No, it is not possible.” 

“Yes, the vital spark has left it. This disheartening 
report has just come to the Admiralty. Even Sir Thomas 
Poinsett has not yet heard of it himself. How strange 
that the wire, after conveying 400 signals, more or less 
perfectly from shore to shore, and working moderately 
well for twenty or thirty days, should at last give up its 
life just now, on the very day of the public commemo- 
ration in New York!” 


86 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


A shadow passed over Lawrence Wilmerding’s face. 

“ The Atlantic Cable dead !” he exclaimed, in a hollow 
tone, as if this death had struck him with something of its 
own chill. 

It had indeed struck him where a capitalist keenly feels 
a blow — in his pocket. 

“Ah,” said he to himself, “ the steel-works, the mining- 
stocks, the railroads, the ocean Cable — all coming together 
— how many more such blows can I stand, and not be a 
beggar ? ” 

Mr. Sewall, one of the secretaries of the Telegraph Com- 
pany, who had just visited the electrician’s office in the hope 
of receiving from the New York celebrants a congratulatory 
message to the London soiree, now entered, and remarked, 

“Ah, Miss Wilmerding, our rejoicing is turned into 
gloom — the object of our congratulations is destroyed.” 

“ What, the Coromandel ? ” cried Lucy, shivering and 
turning pale. 

“ No, the Atlantic Cable,” said he. 

“ 0, is that all ? ” she exclaimed. “ Thank heaven it is 
not the ship ! How you frightened me ! ” 

Lucy Wilmerding — whose mind, like any other true 
woman’s, took its supreme judgments from her heart — 
considered the loss of the Atlantic Cable a trifling calamity 
compared with the destruction of the Coromandel. She 
thought that science, commerce, civilization, the whole 
world’s progress — all taken together, were not for a mo- 
ment to be weighed in the scale with the fate of Mary 
Vail. 

When a woman’s heart rises into her throat and chokes 
her with emotion, as Lucy’s did ; and when, after her 
fright is over, the returning color suffuses her cheeks with 
a fresh and strange flush, — it may make her, for a moment, 
almost as beautiful as an angel of heaven. 

At least such has been the opinion of men on earth. 


IN THREE PARTS OF THE WORLD. 


87 


Anthony Cammeyer, the young lover who, years before, 
had carried violets to this maiden on her sixteenth birth- 
day, ought to have been in that drawing-room in Grosvenor 
Square and to have seen that face — more lovely now in its 
womanly ripeness than ever it had been in its girlish 
bloom. But did Lucy now any longer think of Anthony 
Cammeyer ? Of course she did, for women remember, 
though men forget. 

Not long after this costly failure of the Atlantic Cable, 
came the gloomy forecast of Civil War in the United States. 
Americans in foreign lands turned their thoughts toward 
their own country. Among these homeward-yearning ex- 
iles was Oliver Chantilly. He announced to his friends in 
Cape Town his intention to return to the United States, 
and they gave him a notable farewell. 

It was thus chronicled in the Argus of December 12, 1861 : 

Last evening, Corinthian Hall was the scene of a compli- 
mentary banquet given to Mr. Oliver Chantilly by a small 
number of Cape Colonists, who sympathize with the North. 
Mr. Chantilly, the constructor of some of our public works, 
was originally trained for the American Navy. And having 
received his education at his country’s expense, he now feels honor- 
ably bound to offer his services to his country’s defence. This is re- 
garded as creditable to him even by those of his Colonial friends 
whose good wishes go with the Southrons. 

Capt. John Scarborough presided at the festive board, and made a 
bluff and hearty speech in his well-known eccentric style. He suc- 
ceeded by his uncommon quaintness (which is quite unreportable) in 
setting the table in a roar — particularly at his grotesque references to 
Mr. Chantilly and himself as being popularly considered daft and 
crack-brained concerning the Coromandel and her safety. 

Sir Richard Wilkinson, the financial director of the works which 
Mr. Chantilly has so successfully carried on, sent to the convivialists 
a hearty note, in which he paid a fine tribute to the-personal character 
of his American associate ; but the baronet declined to sit at the ban- 
quet lest his presence should be misconstrued into showing sym- 
pathy for the Northern cause, whereas his hopes are for the triumph 
of the Southern Confederacy. 


88 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Mr. Chantilly, who, on rising to speak, was received with cheers, 
made the following remarks : 

“ My friends ! For all your kindness, many thanks. 1 do not know 
how to navigate myself through a public speech. But I know how to 
steer a ship — I know how to fire a gun. And these are the two things 
that I am going home to do. [Cheers.] 

“ The honored chairman hopes that I can say, in bidding you good- 
bye, that my long sojourn among you has been a pleasant one to my- 
self. Yes, I can say so with my whole heart. [Hear, hear.] And I 
can say also that in whatever part of the world I may, in future years, 
draw my breath, yet always the spirit of my real life — or what remains 
of it — will hover here ; — for here I shall ever have what your great 
laureate calls, 

“ ‘ Two handfuls of white dust, 

Shut in an urn of brass.’ 

Pardon me, gentlemen, if I have flung a shadow on your feast. 

“ And now, as to your chairman’s merry remark that I am the most 
Quixotic man in the Colony except himself [Laughter] — well, I con- 
fess that I have been called Quixotic, first, as to the Breakwater ; but 
I believe that this structure now beats off all criticisms as it does all 
storms. [Hear, hear.] Then I was called Quixotic about the Viaduct, 
but I believe that this stream of water will be to every man in Cape 
Town something which even his own ‘ true love ’ has never been ; for 
its course will * run smooth.’ [Laughter.] Then I was called Quixotic 
on account of the Coromandel ; as if I were a crackbrain for suppos- 
ing that one of the toughest ships ever built had not gone to pieces in 
one of the mildest oceans in the world. And here let me remind you, 
gentlemen, that when you suddenly heard from the ship three years 
after the shipwreck, you met me in the streets, and protested, every 
one of you, that you always expected to see the Coromandel turn up 
alive and well. [Laughter.] Once again I am called Quixotic because 
I propose to go home to fulfill an obligation to my country’s flag. 
[Hear, hear.] Sir Richard Wilkinson, whose letter you have read, 
fears to be considered a friend of the North ; I hope he may live to 
regret that he ever was her enemy. [Voices, ‘ Good ! ’] If it be true, 
as the rumor runs, that Sir Richard’s gratitude to Southern institu- 
tions has led him to invest his money in Confederate bonds— [Hear, 
hear !] — let me say that if, by happy accident, I should command, as 
I hope to do, a Foderal gunboat, and if I should meet any of Sir 
Richard’s Confederate bonds afloat on the high seas in the shape of a 


IN THREE PARTS OF THE WORLD. 


89 


well-equipped Confederate privateer, preying on American commerce 
—why, gentlemen, I should feel compelled to take Sir Richard’s 
property without stopping to give him a receipt. [Laughter.] 

“Well, my friends, in going away, I simply ask to be kindly re- 
membered after I am gone. [Hear, hear !] When any of you take a 
Sunday stroll on the Breakwater, remember we. [Hear, hear !] When, 
from the Viaduct, you drink a cup of cold water — if any of you should 
ever recur to that practice [Laughter] — remember me. When the 
Coromandel shall be finally found, as I believe she will be [Hear, 
hear !] — remember me. And when the English government shall set- 
tle its bill for millions of pounds sterling due to the United States for 
Sir Richard’s and other Englishmen’s damages to American com- 
merce [Voices, ‘ 0 ! 0 ! ’] — then gentlemen, please remember me.’* 
[Great cheering, during which Mr. Chantilly took his seat.] 


On the day after this banquet, Oliver Chantilly sailed 
for New York in the Clipper ship Pathfinder. During his 
voyage he daily searched the sea with his spy-glass, in 
hope to detect the Coromandel drifting somewhere on the 
actual waves as she was ever drifting in his visions and 
dreams. But the Pathfinder did not find the path of the 
Coromandel, nor come within two hundred and fifty leagues 
of the wandering and solitary wreck. 

Meanwhile, events in the United States grew ominous. 
In any nation, a civil war, even before it begins, has al- 
ready begun. Early in 1861, the two sections were in a 
temper for war. During a few succeeding months, hopes 
of peace, like caged doves, still fluttered in many fraternal 
breasts, North and South. But at last, one April day, a 
rebel gun, pointing at Fort Sumter, “ fired the shot heard 
round the world.” The reverberation brought down 
the gathered avalanche of the North. From that flashing 
and sulphurous moment, a new era began in American his- 
tory. 

Midshipman Philip Chantilly, U. S. N., paced the deck 


90 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


of the gun-boat Fleetwing, as she lay in Hampton Koads 
by moonlight. 

“ Why are men born to slay each other ? ” said he, speak- 
ing to himself. “ What is heaven’s use and function for 
human life on earth ? ” and he stood leaning against a 
twelve-inch Parrott-gun, whose iron band showed a silver 
ridge under the moon’s rays. “ God gives life to men,” 
said he, “ and men rob each other of the precious gift. Am 
I, too, one of these robbers of life ? — these spillers of blood ? 
Yes, war is now my trade. But do I hate any of my 
fellow-beings so bitterly that I seek to aim this deadly 
engine at their breasts ? No. I do not enter into this 
war through hatred even of my country’s enemies, but 
through love of my country’s liberty ; for which (if 
need be) a million hearts are not too many to bleed and 
break.” 

“ Chantilly,” said Midshipman Forsyth, who then joined 
him, “ have you heard the news ? ” 

“ From where ? — from what ? ” asked Philip. 

“ Why, from the flag-ship yonder! We are to sail to 
Savannah.” 

“ Good ! ” cried Philip, “ that means work. This 
Parrott ” (pointing to the twelve-inch gun) “ was meant to 
scream ; I want to hear the big bird’s voice.” 

“Tell me,” inquired Forsyth, “when is your father to 
arrive ? ” 

“ He will be due the middle of next month.” 

“Will he re-enter the service ? ” 

“ Yes ; nothing could keep him out of it, except a fail- 
ure to get a commission ; but he has already been appointed 
to a gun-boat in advance of his arrival, and does not yet 
know of his good fortune.” 

“ Philij), will you go on your father’s ship ?” 

“ Yes, if the government so orders.” 

Midshipman Forsyth then sauntered off, and left Philip 


IN’ THREE PARTS OF THE WORLD. 


91 


leaning against the gun, and looking out on the silver- 
spangled waters of the Rip Raps. 

“ To Savannah,” said Philip, half -aloud. “ That is, to 
battle, — to opportunity, — perhaps to distinction, — possibly 
to death. ‘ The paths of glory lead but to the grave.’ ‘All’s 
well that ends well.’ And if the end is a hillock of green 
grass, perhaps that is best of all.” 

Philip Chantilly, like all idealists, had a sombre side to 
his mind ; he was fond, in pensive moments, of courting 
some gentle sorrow; he had a habit, in solitude, of feeding on 
the pleasure of imaginary pain. But there was one thought 
that always aroused him. This was the Coromandel. 

“ Yonder,” said he, surveying the war-fleet in the road- 
stead, “ are seven ships safely at anchor. Strong chains 
hold them ; stout hearts man them ; a tranquil harbor 
engirdles them ; no tempest has dismantled them. There 
they lie ! — in peaceful beauty — all in the living world — not 
one of them beyond a half-hour’s reach of it. But where, 
where is that other ship ? — that lone, lost wanderer ? 
Where is the Coromandel’s moss-grown hulk to-night ? 
What waters, rough or smooth, bear her up at this charmed 
hour into this silvery mist ? There is but one ocean round 
the whole earth, and the Coromandel is on it. That ship 
and this gun-boat are afloat on the self-same sheet of water. 
Who knows but that the very wave now lapping the side 
of the Fleetwing here, has once, in other seas, kissed the 
floating cradle of Barbara Vail ? 0 Barbara, — sweet spirit 
— dear, holy maiden ! — fair unseen idol of my soul’s wor- 
ship ! — I have never looked at your mortal face ; I know 
not that you yet live on this earthly globe ; but hence- 
forth, whether you be a creature of flesh and blood, or only 
a phantom of my mind, never shall any other maidenly 
image take your place in my heart of hearts ! ” 

Philip was interrupted in his rhapsody by the return of 
Forsyth, who exclaimed. 


92 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“Well, Chantilly, which of the poets were you just 
quoting in that fine way ? Come. Let us haye another 
touch of your declamation. Kepeat.” 

“ Well,” said Philip, adroitly covering his retreat, “ do 
you mean the verses I was just reciting ? ” 

“Yes.” 

% 

“ Listen, then, while I repeat a very ancient strain : 

“‘By absence this good means I gain, 

That I can catch her 
Where none can watch her — 

In some close corner of my brain : 

There I embrace and kiss her, 

And so I both enjoy and miss her.’” 

“Who wrote that song ?” asked Forsyth. 

“ I don’t know,” replied Philip. “ I only know that it 
is older than Shakespeare, and sweeter than life.” 

Philip Chantilly’s expressions were rhetorically extrava- 
gant, when his thoughts were of Barbara Yail. 


CHAPTER VII. 


ADRIFT. 

I F an empty water-cask, sealed tight, had been thrown 
overboard from the Coromandel at the time and place 
of Rodney Vail’s shipwreck off Cape Town in 1847, it 
would immediately have become the sport of the Trade 
Wind and the Great Ocean Current. Under the double 
spell of these two forces, it would have drifted westward 
till they had exhausted their joint energies upon it, leav- 
ing it lodged somewhere in the middle of the South 
Atlantic. Here, wandering in a perpetual circle, it may 
have lazily floated for years, perhaps even to this day, 
growing green with fungus and bearded with grass. 

The Coromandel’s own dingy hulk was only a statelier 
water-cask, set adrift on the same sea, obeying the same 
law, and creeping to the same fate. 

Oliver Chantilly was right in his conjecture that the 
wandering bark, once entering this mid-ocean of quietude, 
where few storms ever blow, and where no ships ever sail, 
might there float becalmed for a generation without hope 
of escape, nor come within a thousand miles of either con- 
tinental shore. 

A shipmaster who sails between Boston and the Cape 
of Good Hope may make twenty voyages to and fro, and 
while he is between the Equator and the 29th parallel of 

93 


94 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


South latitude, may never once hear the wind whistle in 
his rigging. The well-known tranquillity of the commer- 
cial and navigable part of this ocean is still further chas- 
tened and subdued in the unfrequented region where the 
Coromandel lay adrift. 

It is the region known to sailors as the Calms of Capri- 
corn. It is the quietest water-sheet in the salty world. It 
is the true Pacific, — and should have been so named. Its 
winds are perpetual whispers. Its waves are halcyon. Its 
climate is a summer of twelve months. 

This phenomenal sea — this boundless glassy mirror — has 
its geographical centre at the crossing of longitude 14° E. 
with latitude 27° S. Round this centre, and within a cir- 
cumference large enough to include France and Spain, 
the Coromandel drifted for years — a solitary voyager on 
an ocean shadowed by no ship’s canvas save her own tat- 
tered rags in the summer sun. Here the tough wreck 
wandered in tedious safety, at a perpetual distance of hun- 
dreds of leagues from the highways of commerce, and 
from the eyes of men. 

“ The old ship,” said the lonely captain to himself in a 
mood of bitter reflection, “ is in a fool’s-paradise ; for in 
these Calms of Capricorn — without sails, without engines 
— without galley-oars— without any means to force our 
escape— she may lie here till her hulk rots.” 

Dr. Vail, having cast this horoscope of isolation, soon 
discovered that his dismal prophecy was making a slow 
march to fulfillment. 

The ship, that could not obey her master’s helm, 
faithfully followed his chart : — the shadowy chart on 
which he had thus darkly outlined her fate. Long 
and lone were her wanderings over her blue and solitary 
domain. Monotonous and unending was her aimless 
yet unperilous voyage. Blind, groping, and stagger- 
ing, like a bewildered sleep-walker risen in the night, 


ADRIFT. 


95 


the Coromandel pursued her idle, drowsy way — round 
and round, in and out, up and down, through and 
across the most lonely ocean that rolls within habitable 
zones. 

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed Dr. Vail, one starlit evening, while 
pacing the deck alone, “ What tale or history has ever 
chronicled a fate like ours ! Think of this ship — an un- 
wrecked wreck — weather-beaten by perpetual calms — fast 
anchored over soundless depths — stranded a thousand 
leagues from shore ! Whither, 0 whither, does mocking 
Fate waft her evermore astray ? Are these the waters of 
Oblivion ? Nay, they are rather the meeting floods of all 
memories — from whose depths each wave is ever casting 
up past thoughts into the unforgetful soul. 0 that the 
great dome above me might open, and let me in ! Here 
do I waste my heart, my hope, my life ! Here, standing 
amid this boundlessness, captive without a yoke, fettered 
without a chain, I am become a bond-slave to liberty itself. 
Why, why am I exiled from the busy world ! 0 for the 
stormy rocks to-night, where some companionable light- 
house shines ! 0 for the perils of the fisherman’s bleak 

yet inhabited coast ! O for shipwreck indeed, if only it 
would discover to us a sight of land, and cast us where 
men dwell ! ” 

Meanwhile, had not the Coromandel’s cargo been com- 
posed of provisions, and had not these been skillfully adapted 
for permanent preservation, the hapless little company 
must soon have starved. But, richer than gold or gems^ 
the treasure with which their argosy was laden was food to 
eat : — food originally designed to stock a whaling-fleet for 
three years, and therefore enough to last a little family for 
a lifetime. 

Rodney Vail frequently reasoned with himself as to the 
probable fate of his little flock. 

“ In weighing our chances,” said he, “ the chief problem 


96 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


is our larder, and how long it will last. My anxiety is not 
as to its quantity, for we have a superabundance— enough 
and to spare indeed, we could give liberally to the poor, 
if they could only come to our door to beg ; — but the ques- 
tion is, are our provisions so well packed and sealed as to 
fortify them in their cans against the increeping of 
mildew and mold ? They are sufficient against the teeth 
of hunger, but are they proof against the tooth of 
time ? ” 

Dr. Vail had long before — indeed, shortly after the ship- 
wreck — compiled from the bills of lading a catalogue of 
the ship’s cargo of provisions : — showing at a glance his 
store of preserved meats, poultry, game, vegetables, fish, 
oysters, essences of soup, natural fruits in syrup, catsup, 
sauces, et cetera : — amounting altogether to sixty-five tons 
of choice, compact, and permanent provisions — sealed in 
cans, jars, glass vases, and metal boxes of various sizes and 
forms. 

The daily allowance of food which Nature dictates to a 
heathy and active man is two-and-a-half or three pounds 
of solids, and three pints of liquids. 

Counting the Coromandel’s company, including the dog, 
as four men, and giving to each the largest allowance, 
namely, three pounds of solid food per day, this would 
show the following rate of consumption : 


One person, one day 3 pounds. 

Four persons, “ ‘ * 12 “ 

One person one year 1095 “ 

Four persons “ “ 4380 “ 


Estimating in round numbers that the four hungry 
mouths which were to be fed on the Coromandel required 
five thousand pounds of solid food a year, then, as the 
ship’s cargo contained a hundred and thirty-five thousand 


ADRIFT, 


07 


pounds, there would be a liberal supply for twenty-six 
years.* 


* The following is an exact copy of Dr. Vail's complete schedule : 

Summary of Cargo of Provisions 

Shipped from Harmony Factory by Williston Brothers per Coromandel to 

Cape Town. 


Meats. 


Beef 

250 

dozen 

2} pound cans 

, total 7,500 pounds, 

44 

140 

44 

H 

44 

44 

“ 2,520 “ 

44 

500 

44 

1 

44 

44 

“ 6,000 “ 

Beef a la mode 


44 

2 

44 

4 » 

“ 2,400 “ 

Mutton 

85 

44 

n 

44 

44 

“ 1,530 “ 

Assorted , 


<4 

Total . 

i 

44 

44 

“ 1,500 “ 


Poultry and Game. 

Chicken 100 dozen 2 pound cans, total 2,400 pounds. 


Duck 

.. 75 

44 

n 

44 

44 

44 

2,250 

44 

Goose 

.. 50 

44 

2 

44 

44 

44 

1,200 

44 

Turkey 

.. 85 

44 

n 

44 

44 

44 

2,550 

41 

Grouse 


44 

i 

44 

44 

44 

300 

44 



Total 





. 8,700 

44 


Vegetables. 






Asparagus 

. .150 dozen 3 

pound cans, total 5,400 pounds. 

Green Corn 

. 300 

44 

2 

44 

44 

44 

7,250 . 

44 

Beans, String 

. 100 

44 

2 

44 

44 

44 

2,400 

44 

“ Lima 

100 

44 

2 

44 

44 

44 

2,400 

44 

“ Refugee 

100 

44 

o 

44 

44 

44 

2,400 

44 

Green Peas, Bogert 

. 100 

44 

n 

(4 

44 

44 

1,S00 

44 

“ “ Nonpareil 

. ICO 

44 

H 

44 

44 

44 

1,800 

44 

Potatoes 

. 250 

44 

21 

44 

44 

44 

7,500 

44 

Turnips . 

ion 

44 

21 

1 4 

44 

44 

1,200 

44 

Carrots 

. 100 

44 

1 

44 

44 

44 

1,200 

4 * 

Beats 

100 

44 

1 

44 

44 

44 

1.200 

44 

Saco Succotash 

200 

44 

3 

44 

44 

44 

7,200 

44 



Total. 





.41,700 

44 



Fish. 







Salmon 

70 dozen 21 pound cans, total 2,100 pounds. 

Spiced Salmon 

140 

44 

2 

44 

44 

44 

3,360 

44 

Mackerel 

250 

44 

2 

44 

44 

44 

6,000 

41 


Total 11,460 “ 


98 


TEMPEST-TOSSED, 


“This,” exclaimed Rodney Vail, with a grim humor, 
“is stock and store for a longer voyage than I hope we 
have undertaken ! ” 


Shell Fish. 

Lobster 150 dozen 2 pound cans, total 3,600 pounds. 


Little Neck Clams 


“ 2i “ 

“ “ 3,000 

03 r sters 


“ 2 “ 

“ “ 7,200 

11 o’clock spiced Oysters... 

. 10 

“ 2J- “ 

“ “ 300 

Pickled Oysters 

. 50 

“ quart 

44 44 



Total 

14,100 



Soups. 



Beef Soup 

100 dozen pound cans, 

total 3,000 pounds. 

Julieu Soup 

100 

“ 2 

4. 

44 

44 

2,400 

44 

Tomato Soup 

250 

“ 1 

44 

44 

44 

3,000 

44 

Vegetable Soup 

. . .200 

“ 2 

44 

44 

44 

4,800 

44 

Oxtail Soup 

25 

“ 2 

44 

44 

44 

600 

44 


Total 




.13,800 



Natural Fruits in Syrup. 





Bartlett Pears 


pound jars, total 1,200 pounds. 

Apples, Spitzenberg 

140 

“ n 

44 

44 

44 

2,520 

44 

Peaches, White Heath. . 

70 

“ H 

<4 

44 

44 

1,260 

44 

“ Lady Gallican 

70 

“ 1 

44 

44 

44 

1,260 

44 

Plums, Green Gages 

25 

“ 1 

44 

44 

44 

300 

44 

“ Damson 

25 

“ 1 

44 

44 

44 

300 

44 

Cherries, Ox Hea.ts 


“ 2 

44 

44 

44 

1,800 

44 

Quinces 

15 

“ 1 

44 

44 

44 

180 

44 

Cranberries 


“ 2* 

44 

44 

44 

3,750 

44 

Pine-apple, Nassau, 

40 

“ 1 

44 

44 

44 

480 

44 

Raspberries 


“ 2 

44 

44 

44 

3,600 

44 

Blackberries 


“ 1 

44 

44 

44 

600 

44 

Strawberries 


“ 2 

44 

44 

44 

2,400 

44 



Total 



. . 19,650 


Pickles. 




Gherkins, mixed 



“ plain 



44 

44 44 44 

Chow-chow 



44 

pint “ 

Horse-radish 



44 

44 44 44 

Picallilly 

Extracts. 


44 

44 44 44 

Nutmeg 




. 1 dozen bottles. 

Cinnamon 




J 44 44 

Almond 




1 44 44 

Vanilla 




1 U U 


ADRIFT. 


99 


Furthermore, as an important addition to the food which 
formed the cargo, Dr. Vail, by skillful handicraft, frequent- 
ly caught birds and fish. 

So he had no lack of food. 


Honey 1 dozen bottles. 

Lemon 3 4i “ 

Sundries. 

Olives, French 5 dozen jars. 

“ Spanish 3 “ “ 

Sardines, Quarter Boxes 10 “ boxes. 

“ Half “ 5 “ “ 

Capers 3 “ jars. 

Brandy Fruits. 

Peaches 5 dozen jars. 

Cherries, French 5 “ “ 

Syrups. 

Ginger 25 dozen bottles. 

True Lemon 50 “ “ 

Gorham « 35 “ “ 

Lime Juice 100 “ “ 

Total, 2,520 bottles. 

Catsups and Sauces. 

Tomato Catsup 20 dozen pints. 

Mushroom Catsup 10 “ \ “ 

Red Pepper Sauce 5 “ i “ 

Green “ “ 5 “ l “ 

Worcestershire “ 2 “ i “ 

India Curry 1 “ i “ 

Total, 189 quarts. 

Recapitulation of the. above. 

Meats, in Cans 21,450 pounds. 

Poultry and game “ 8.700 “ 

Vegetables, “ 41,700 “ 

Fish, “ L 460 “ 

Shell Fish, “ 14 - 100 “ 

Soups, « 13*800 “ 

Natural Fruits, Jars 19,650 


Total, 130,860 “ 

Together with other articles named in the Schedule, and not estimated by weight. 

Cost. 

Total cost of the above stock of provisions, as shown by bills 
of lading 


$31,450 00 


100 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Then as to drink, or the human body’s thirsty demand 
for its three pints of liquid per day, this was abundantly 
satisfied from the bountiful clouds. 

“ But what,” said Rodney, surveying his horn of plenty, 
“ what if mold or mildew should invade this precious store, 
like the moth and rust that corrupt other treasures ! ” 

Dr. Vail reasoned with himself that any particular can 
of his meats, if set aside for the experiment, would remain 
sound and wholesome for a thousand years, or as long as 
the can itself could be kept from the canker of rust. 

He was right in this reasoning; for, by the hermetic proc- 
ess, the whole art of preserving food for years, possibly 
for centuries, is simply the art of protecting the cans ; that 
is, so long as these metal or glass coverings can be kept 
from corrosion, their nutritious contents can be kept from 
decay. 

But this perennial preservation of food, though now one 
of the simplest of arts, had not thoroughly demonstrated 
its practicability in 1847 (when Dr. Vail quitted the known 
world), and consequently he was never free from painful 
anxiety concerning liis stores and their possible spoiling. 

Nevertheless, as time wore on, and as each successive 
can which he opened proved as fresh and palatable as the 
first, he found that, amid all his calamities, he still had 
the supreme good fortune to be the perpetual consignee of 
an unfailing cargo of wholesome provisions. 

“ At first,” said he, “I jiraycdthat our food would last 
as long as our voyage, but now I pray that our voyage may 
not last so long as our food.” 

The Coromanders shipwrecked company clothed them- 
selves with the apparel which they found in the trunks 
and portmanteaus of the departed passengers, and in the 
chests which the crew had abandoned in the forecastle. 

These garments were of every stuff and fibre, from water- 
proof oil-skins, pea-jackets, tarpaulins, flannels, felts, and 


ADRIFT. 


101 


all the shaggy wardrobe of seafaring men, to silks, satins, 
velvets, linens, laces, ribbons, and all the gay plumage of 
man’s companion bird-of-paradise. 

Nor was there wanting, amid all the barren dreariness 
of the situation, a strange and almost barbaric sense of 
luxury ; for the abandoned jewels of many families had 
become the accumulated ornaments of one. 

The Coromandel’s cabin — which, when she left Boston- 
harbor, was a picture of cosiness and even elegance — had 
suffered no great sea-change. Built for a warm refuge 
against Arctic snows, the solid woodwork was a cool cita- 
del against the summer sun. The floor was inlaid with 
alternate strips of light and dark wood, configured into a 
graceful variety of geometric designs. It was not covered 
with a carpet, but strewn here and there with brilliant 
Turkish mats — purple, scarlet, and orange. 

Opening into this general saloon, were eight state-rooms 
on each side, with heavy and durable doors, paneled with 
bird’s-eye maple, shining almost like satin-wood. The ceil- 
ing, which was heavily cross-barred with deck-beams, was 
slightly frescoed in the interstices, on a ground of blue 
enamel ; and the cornices were decorated with gilt mold- 
ings, narrow and neat. The mizzen-mast slanted down 
through the cabin, and was the most pretentious feature 
of the ship’s inward splendor ; for it was carved and color- 
ed into a representation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 
Around its base was a sumptuous velvet lounge. 

In the after end of the cabin were two small windows, 
piercing the stern of the ship, and looking out through 
thick plate-glass upon the water. Between these windows 
was a ram’s-head bracket of black-walnut, solidly carven ; 
on which stood, bound with fastenings, a heavy brown 
terra-cotta flower-pot, with a large geranium — the only bit 
of vegetation which the ship contained. Lengthwise through 
the cabin stood a long mahogany table ; long, that is 


102 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


originally ; though it had afterward been taken apart and 
shortened so as to give more space for walking round it. 
Across the forward end of this table, and just under a sky- 
light in the deck, stood a piano — a small upright instru- 
ment of the old-fashioned Erard type, with slender Co- 
rinthian pillars, and with brass candlesticks. 

Erom the forward end of the cabin, and leading up to 
the deck, was a stair- way, the steps of which were plated 
with brass. On the underside of this stair- way was a re_ 
treating, triangular closet, containing the forty or fifty 
volumes of the ship’s library. Adjoining this closet was a 
writing-desk, at which Rodney Vail habitually wrote his 
log and journal. On either side of the stair- way was a 
small horizontal panel, in one of which had been painted, 
with some attempt at fine finish (at least of fine polish), a 
highly colored representation of the May-Flower anchored 
at Plymouth, and in the other, as a companion piece, 
Washington’s tomb at Mount Vernon. 

In strange contrast with the cheeriness of the cabin 
was the grimness of the deck. The ship’s exterior every- 
where showed traces of fire and wreck ; — here a patch of 
positive charcoal — there a strip of scorched timber, burnt 
not quite black ; here a dinted bruise in the deck where a 
fallen spar had struck it — there the peeling off of the 
paint, showing the grain of the wood, even through the 
successive coatings of fish-oil which Dr. Vail had subse- 
quently put on it, to preserve it from the weather ; here, 
a rickety jury-mast, with its thin and worn sail seldom 
hoisted — there the fire-stained binnacle, bruised and 
blackened, and surmounted in calm weather by a pictur- 
esque awning, not of canvas, but of flannel sewed in 
alternate strips of red and blue. 

This was an unusual fabric for a weather-screen, but the 
material happened to be on board the ship ; for in 1846-7 
English woolens were so scarce and dear, that American 


ADRIFT. 


103 


mill-owners, who manufactured similar goods, though of 
cheaper grades, seized their opportunity to send their 
wares to English Colonial markets. Accordingly a num- 
ber of bales of flannels, blue and red, were shipped on the 
Coromandel consigned to a merchant in Cape Town. As 
Dr. Vail had no need of this material for garments, he 
used it for awnings, and also (in narrow strips) for fish- 
nets and bird-traps. 

Within this wandering ship, far away from land, drift- 
ing year after year at the languid caprice of idle winds and 
waves, dwelt a little family remote from all human com- 
panionship save only what they could give to each other ; 
and one of whom had never seen any human beings, save 
only her father, her mother, her nurse, and her own girlish 
face in a glass. 

Perpetually did these three adults yearn for land, for 
green fields, for kindred and friends, for privileges and 
opportunities, — in a word, for the comforts and kindly 
associations of the life which they had once lived ; and 
from which they had been excluded so long that they 
began to fear they should enter it nevermore. 

But the child Barbara, 

“ Native here and to the manner born,” 

lived in the ship as naturally as other children live in a 
house ; running about the deck, as others about a lawn ; 
familiar with the ocean as others with the land. 

Was this ever busy, prattling, chattering child the vic- 
tim of an unhappy fate ? If so, the blue-eyed innocent 
herself did not know it. Was she not a thousand times 
better off than if she had been the State’s tenant of an 
orphan asylum ? Yfas not her shipboard life superior in 
blessings to the sad, death-struck lives of the wretched 
children who toil in mills and mines ? Was she not in a 


104 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


king’s palace compared with the wretched hovels in which 
many a fair young sunny head, golden as her own, is 
brought up amid squalor and vice ? 

Barbara was not a child born of wretchedness, nor even 
nursed of misfortune. 

Strong, free, merry-hearted, and knowing no other 
life than that which she now lived, she sighed for no 
other ; indeed, she sighed for nothing ; she had a healthy 
slowness in learning the art even of childish sorrow ; her 
eyes, though familiar with waters, were strangers to tears ; 
and so she dwelt in her sea-girt home like a very oriole of 
the hill-top, singing and s winging in her wind-dangled nest. 

Other hearts on the ship were often sluggish and stag- 
nant with sadness, but Barbara was a running mountain 
brook of ever-bubbling joy. 

“ Mary,” said Bodney, who felt that their daughter was 
the ship’s animating soul, “we gave to Barbara her life, 
but we have received from her our lives in return. With- 
out that child to cheer us, we must long ago have grown 
pale, wan, and mad. She has been the angel of our 
safety.” 

Dr. Yail did not overstate the child’s unconscious in- 
fluence ; as, indeed, it would be difficult to overstate the 
unconscious influence of any child in any family. Dejec- 
tion, ennui, and despair would have blighted the Coro- 
mandel’s company, save only that there was no escaping 
from the enlivening contagion of Barbara’s happy spirits. 
The gay, lithesome, intense creature who ran over the 
ship like a kid over a rock, leaping and climbing, afraid 
of nothing and enjoying everything ; — this nymph of 
fun and mischief, outdoing the dog Beaver himself in 
playful pranks, was the perpetual solace of the sad com- 
pany ; and their sorrow was something which the sorrow- 
less child was never allowed to guess, and which she was 
thus all the more able to cheer. 


ADRIFT. 


105 


She grew apace, waxing in healthy vigor and juvenile 
bloom. 

Then, in due time, in consequence of Barbara’s growth, 
her mother, the quondam school-mistress of Salem, re- 
opened her school — not in a New England school-house 
but in an East Indian ship ; wherein, cooped like a 
motherly hen with one chick, Barbara’s teacher brooded 
over her solitary scholar. She gave her a daily lesson 
compounded of books, pens, water-colors and piano. 

“ Barbara sings like a wood-thrush,” said her father, 
listening one day, while her clear voice rang through the 
ship. 

“ Yes,” said Mary, “ the piano grows out of tune and 
falls into discord, but Barbara’s voice ripens into richer 
and sweeter tone, and she goes about warbling as if she 
were a lost nightingale, singing by day.” 

Every day, after school hours, came Barbara’s habitual 
demand for a story ; which, when her mother told it, was 
generally a true one — consisting sometimes of one of the 
many incidents, told over and over again, which she knew 
of Lucy Wilmerding, who had been her beloved pupil ; or 
sometimes of Philip Chantilly, who was to have been her 
daughter’s playmate ; or sometimes of Philip’s squirrel 
J uju, a creature that frisked with ideal gambols in Barbara’s 
mind, and ranked in the animal kingdom second only to 
Beaver himself. 

The years, like gentle breaths, passed over the ship, but 
without wafting her to the shore. 

Meanwhile Barbara, like all children, developed with 
astonishing rapidity ; at least, so it seemed to her parents ; 
for, to parents, nothing marks so impressively the flight of 
time as the growth of their children. 

“ Our voyage,” said Rodney, one afternoon, as he sat 
mending a net, “ has been slow and tedious enough, heaven 
knows; and yet look yonder at Barbara ; only yesterday 


106 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


she seemed a babe new-born, and now she is carrying that 
great dog in her arms.” 

One day, Jezebel, who was always uttering her thoughts 
through emblems or figures, walked across the cabin, say- 
ing, 

“I am lookin’ for de lambkin, and can’t find her. But 
what’s de good book say ? ‘De lost shall be found.’ We 
hab lost a lambkin and found a lamb.” 

The protracted shipwreck now began to fill Mrs. Vail’s 
mind with motherly anxiety for Barbara’s education and 
future welfare. 

“ I dread the time,” said she to her husband, “ when 
our daughter will cease to be satisfied with her present cir- 
cumscribed state, and will long to enter into that great 
realm of human activity which she now is content to see 
in her fancies and dreams.” 

This thought had already stolen like a shadow across 
Rodney’s mind, and he looked forward with similar dread 
to Barbara’s realization of her imprisonment. 

One breezy morning, while the sea was sparkling with 
unusual lustre, Barbara was busy with some silent amuse- 
ment, ail alone by herself at the ship’s bow. 

“My dear husband,” said the weary wife, who sat under 
the flannel awning (which now had many tatters), “tell 
me, for our daughter’s sake — I do not ask for our own — is 
there no hope of escape from this captivity ? ” 

“Softly,” said Dr. Vail, putting his finger on his lips, 
“speak lower — Barbara stands yonder, looking over the 
ship’s side, throwing something overboard ; she must not 
hear us utter any murmur or complaint.” 

“But tell me,” said Mary, sinking her voice to a mere 
sigh ; “ do you think we are never to see land ? ” 

This question shot a pang through Rodney’s breast. 

“ Mary,” said he, “how we have drifted hither is plain 
enough ; how we are kept here is equally plain ; but how 


ADRIFT. 


107 


we are ever to get away from this watery desert, I know 
not. Day after day, year after year, this mounting ship 
keeps climbing up the low hill-tops of these gentle waves, 
as if on the look-out for some island of rest, or some vessel 
of rescue, only to find none, and to sink back again into 
the perpetual sea.” 

Barbara, the busy maid, lithe, fair-haired, and sun-burnt, 
did not overhear this conversation, but happened just then 
to be whispering something to her own solitary heart. 

“ Go, little ship of glass,” said she, looking down at a 
small floating object that was glittering in the water, 
“ carry your message safely, and tell the great world that 
I am in it, and am longing to see its beautiful people, es- 
pecially Lucy and — ! ” 

“Barbara, what are you doing ?” asked her mother, 
calling to her affectionately. 

“0,” replied the maiden, “I have been throwing 
another little glass jar overboard, with a writing in it, just 
as my father does. I am watching to see the little thing 
toss about and float away.” 

“ What did you write ? ” 

“Just something to please myself.” 

Barbara had a habit, whenever a small fruit-jar was emp- 
tied, to freight it with some mysterious words, in her own 
girlish hand-writing — some message which she allowed 
neither her father nor mother to see — and then to cast the 
little message-bearer overboard. 

Possibly these enclosures were love-letters, but if they 
were, Barbara kept them to herself with young love’s se- 
crecy, which is shyer than old love’s craft. 

“ Dat’s right, my little lamb,” said Jezebel to Barbara, 
“what’s de good book say? ‘ Cast dy bread upon de waters, 
and dou shalt find it after many days.’ ” 

The many days of Jezebel’s prophecy then slowly and 
wearily passed ; during which the lowly-minded sybil con- 


108 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


tinned to occupy lierself with forgetting Bruno and remem- 
bering Pete ; with scolding Beaver and nursing Mrs. Vail ; 
with seeing visions and growing old. 

One night, at a very late hour, after the ship had rocked 
all its other inmates (even the dog) to sleep, Dr. Vail sat at 
his writing-desk in the cabin. 

His lamp was poorly fed with fish-oil, which he had made 
from a porpoise ; and the smoky flame cast a dim light over 
his sad, haggard face. 

“ I can hardly believe this record,” said he, “nor even 
credit my own handwriting.” 

He had been making his usual entry in his journal, and 
after completing it, had turned the pages backward to the 
earlier notes of the voyage. 

A painful sense passed through him of his long exile, 
which had already lasted through weary years, and which 
for aught that he could foresee, might possibly last through 
man’s mortal span. 

“Am I to live all my life on this ship?” he sighed. “Is 
my little family to waste here to old age, and die, and be 
left to fall to dust in this drifting bark, till she herself 
moulders, drops to pieces, and goes down ? Is Barbara 
never to see a human face except the sad countenances that 
confront her in this prison-house ? Are there more years 
and cycles and eternities to come, of this watching and 
weariness ? How have we all kept ourselves alive ?— and yet 
we live. How have we all maintained our reason ? — and yet 
we are sane. When will the end come ? It will never 
come ! The curse is on us. We are fated. There is no 
God !” 

In turning over the pages of his journal, Dr. Vail came 
at last to an early record which he sought — the list of the 
ship’s stores — the long schedule of provisions from the 
Harmony Factory. 

“Ah, here it is,” said he ; “ but I have to look back 


ADKIFT. 


109 


through nearly half a generation to find it ! IIow life 
vanishes ! Hour time flies ! The very ink has faded and the 
paper grown yellow ! How long this ship has been drifting 
since this record was made, and yet she is almost in the 
same place now as then ! — just two degrees of latitude, 
and three and a half of longitude, from the very spot where 
the trade-wind first left us in the middle of the ocean ! 
When I penned this catalogue in this book, little did I 
think that we were then predestined to gnaw our way with 
daily hunger through a thousand solid cans and sealed jars ! 
Thank heaven, we have not yet come to starvation. No,” 
said he, shutting his journal, “ that fate is yet afar off ! 
Not more than two-thirds of this stock have been con- 
sumed — the other third remains. He who hears the young 
ravens when they cry will not permit my dear ones to suf- 
fer hunger. In the midst of plenty, how can we want ? 
Begone, horrible shadows of famine ! Fade, unreal fears, 
and let my mind have peace !” 

The Roman-faced hero — who had a more than Roman 
heart — a very Spartan spirit — closed his journal, and like 
the wise physician that he was, who knew how to make 
the body’s rest minister to the mind’s health, gave to him- 
self the wholesome medicine of sleep. 

Meanwhile the Coromandel, like the water-cask whose 
fate she followed, still went drifting through a wilderness 
of waters — pursuing her slow voyage without haste, with- 
out rest. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


DR. TAIL’S JOURNAL. 

T HE manuscript which Dr. Vail, by the light of his 
fish-oil lamp, had just been reading at midnight, was 
called by him the Doomsday Book. 

It contained the daily latitude, longitude, barometer, 
winds, and weather ; desultory memoranda of fishing, bird- 
catching, and ship-chandlering ; occasional references to 
the domestic life which he and his fellow-hermits lived on 
their lonely ship ; and now and then, at wide intervals, a 
brief mention of his secret thoughts and feelings — his hopes, 
fears and prayers. 

A man of equal sensitiveness and stoicism, he suffered 
much, but expressed little. In writing his journal, he 
watchfully prevented himself from pinning his heart on 
his page with the point of his pen. He not only shrank 
from recording, he shrank even from contemplating, his 
misery and despair. 

His note-book, though it grew thick under his daily 
hand, recorded, as time advanced, fewer and fewer 
traces of the more dismal features of the Coromandel’s his- 
tory:— such as the hours of sickness, watching and anguish ; 
the scenes of storms, and threatened engulf ment ; the fear 
of famine and starvation ; the ominous wildness of mind 
that sometimes pervaded the whole company at once, each 
communicating the mad contagion to the other ; the hor- 
rible impatience that occasionally smote them like a dis- 

110 


DR. VAIL’S JOURNAL. 


Ill 


temper ; the will-o’-the-wisps that lured them often into 
hopeless bewilderment, and to the edge and verge of the 
soul’s extremest woe ; — all these features of the real history 
were but sparsely noted in the written record. 

Dr. Yail’s Doomsday Book, therefore, from the omissions 
which it intentionally made, gradually became a long record 
of unimportant things ; a stupendous volume of trifles ; and 
yet, rightly judged, this very triviality was itself full of 
pathos, in view of the unending monotone of misery which 
the suffering author sought not to record, but only to be- 
guile. 

Each day’s memorandum was generally meagre and terse, 
— sometimes a paragraph, but usually only a line ; and, 
indeed, the brave record, in hundreds of instances, con- 
sisted simply of the date with an added “All’s well.” 

Herewith appended is a collection of particulars from 
this slight diary, chosen from hundreds and even thousands 
of its entries ; the excerpts marking considerable intervals 
of time, and stretching through half a generation of 
human life. 

IS4.7, Nov 12. Flung overboard, just before sunset, another glass 
fruit-jar, with record of our misfortunes. This little privateer, with 
its letter of marque, was loath to depart on its mission, but stayed in 
sight all through the twilight, until at last it was lost in the same 
gloom that surrounds our ship, our souls, and our fate. 

Dec. 13. Occasionally I haul back the water- drag, hoist my sail, 
and steer before the wind. But to what purpose ? Why head the 
ship one way rather than another ? I am hopelessly distant from land 
on all sides. Still, Mary’s mind is sometimes comforted by seeing the 
black hulk whitened with our hand’s breadth of canvas ; and Jezebel 
holds Barbara close down to the compass, which winks its eye in the 
deck, to the little one’s delight. 

’4S, Feb. 6. I have been successfully trying Cazneau’s plan, of dis- 
tilling fresh water from salt. 

May 3. Our Baby Barbara has cut another tooth. 

June 28. Starboard lantern dashed to pieces by a gull, flying 
against it in the night. 


112 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


July 11. Tuned the piano, which had rusted in the wires ; and 
Mary played Home, Sweet Home. 

Aug. 30. I am acting the part of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, 
but have no scruples against eating the broiled joint of an albatross. 

Oct. 15. The air is full of electricity to-night — St. Elmo’s fire run- 
ning round the ship’s rail. 

Nov. 26. Built a boat ; the frame of barrel-staves ; the bottom and 
sides of sailcloth ; — it will serve for a dory in mild weather, in case I 
need to make a fisherman’s excursion a short distance from the ship. 

18 49, Jan. 9. Been thinking this evening of Oliver Chantilly. Is 
he not searching for us ? Yes ; through storm and calm. But will 
he ever find us ? 

March 16. Opened a can of asparagus, which Mary calls as good as 
the freshest on Pritchard’s farm. 

June 29. Beaver tore his forefoot against a nail in the forecastle, 
chasing a rat. 

Oct. 27. A white shark is following us, as if somebody were about 
to die on board. 

Nov. 30. My bird-traps have snared nothing for 21 days. 

'50, Feb. 11. Thought I saw a ship — a small white speck in the 
horizon, N. N. W. ; but, after it kindled my blood into a fever, it 
vanished ; wherefore I suspect it was a cloud. 

June 20. Renewed my canvas boat, which was so badly worn as to 
be too risky to use. Frame still good, but canvas rotten. Cut out a 
new covering from the ship’s spare flying-jibs. 

Aug. 6. A storm ! — but it rages more fiercely in my soul than in 
the sea. O the desolation that rules the world at this midnight hour ! 
Come death rather than this prolonged despair ! 

Sept. 28. Alas ! the Coromandel is now a hospital. All but myself 
down with fever. What if I, too, give out? 

Dec. 25. Christmas, and no Christmas tree ! No green thing on 
board save our solitary geranium, growing in its flower-pot in the 
cabin ! Nor any household chimney for Santa Claus to come down to 
Barbara’s stockings ! But the little thing had them hung up last 
night, and found in them this morning three French treasures, to wit : 
a Paris doll, a Noah’s ark, and a Harlequin. 0 Madame D’Arblay, 
you were a foolish old chatterbox, but you have been a blessing in 
adversity to a little family whom you bored dreadfully in their better 
days ! 

’51, Jan. 12. Another lantern shivered to fragments by the beaks 
of night-birds,. 


DR. VAIL’S JOURNAL. 


113 


April 20. Rain, rain, rain,-- enough to freshen the salt sea. 

June 6. Planned an improvement for Fairmount Water- Works, 
but find a difficulty in submitting the design to the City Council. 

*52, Jan. 7. Barbara has folded a sheet of paper into a tiny book 
in imitation of the ship’s log, and has made her first entry as follows : 

‘ Bevir is gods Dog. 1 

Jan. 13. Dead calm— not a ripple. 0 vanishing days and wasting 
life ! Idleness — nothingness— blankness. How long till oblivion? 
When shall I reach Lethe’s wharf, where the fat weeds rot ? There 
will I moor my wandering bark forever. 

March 27. This morning I found my last lantern shivered into fine 
bits by the birds, and the ship now shows no light at night — except 
through the cabin windows. 

May 30. 0 for a little frost, or a Yankee NoFwester to brace one’s 
nerves I 

Bee. 13. Barbara is always begging for a new story, so I asked her 
yesterday for a list of those she knew already, and received to-day the 
following letter by ocean-mail : 

Deer Papa 

I no All Thease. little red Ridinghud Jack the Giantkiller 40 theavs Laddins lamp 
gody 2 shus Buty & Beest pide PiPer Robin sun crusow paul & viginya Filip an 
juju & Thats all I no Barbara. 

’53, Jan. 1. Happy New Year ! Barbara’s busy brain continually 
asks for something to do, and so her mother has resolved to begin the 
year with a female seminary. As the school-house rolls a little, we 
call it Topsyturvy College. 

March 2. A sword-fish angrily stuck his stiletto into a spar of 
our water drag, and broke off his fine weapon, leaving it for our cab- 
inet of curiosities. 

Nov. 20. Whittled for Barbara a Punch-and-Judy, which Mary has 
trimmed with red and blue flannel rags. 

’54, Feb. 9. Judging by an imaginary map, I am within 500 miles 
of Ferdinand de Norohna. 

March 13. Caught with hook and bait mylargest albatross, meas- 
uring 18 feet from tip to tip of outspread wings. 

May 27. Our floating hulk is growing mouldy round the water’s 
edge. 

July 13. I would give a gold watch for a lemon. 

’55, Sept. 29. Jezebel insists that an occasional ghost glides through 
the ship at night. 


114 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


*56, April 9. If Barbara dies in this sickness, I shall wrap my 
arms about her and sink with her into the sea. 

May 21 Busy all day with my salt works. 

Bee. 11. Picked up to-day a broken oar, covered with long grass, 
and branded on the blade with the words : “ Stockdove, Maker, Liv- 
erpool, 1805.” It may have been half a century in the water ! 
Probably it became water-logged years ago and sank. Its crop of 
buoyant grass then gradually lifted it again to the surface, and kept 
it floating in the sunshine. So man’s calamities, that first sink the 
soul into dark and dismal depths, at last by their own natural growth 
buoy him up through the very billows that once rolled over him, and 
ever after keep him floating above them in the perpetual light of 
heaven. 

*57, April 6. If this is time, what is eternity ? Blot out the lying 
almanac which reckons a hundred years to a century ! I reckon a 
hundred centuries to a year. 

May 13. Have been haunted for three days with the thought of 
coming in sight of the Peak of Teneriffe. 

Aug. 11. Weather so calm that I could see the earth’s rotundity. 
The glassy ocean sloped visibly down around us on every side. The 
ship rested like a fly on the top of the vast and gently rounding ball. 

Nov. If. Fancied the Coromandel had sprung a leak, but the alarm 
was occasioned by the bursting of water-tank No. 5, which I tightened 
with a new hoop. 

*58, Jan. 16. With fear and quaking, Jezebel testifies to seeing the 
Lord Christ walking in majesty over these waves. 

Feb. 21. Mary has fancifully named the various parts of the ship 
to remind her of home thus, the cabin is Salem ; the main deck, 
Boston Common ; the jury-mast, Bunker Hill Monument ; and the 
binnacle, Grandfather Pritchard’s summer-house. 

May 26. Caught a dolphin, and shall make oil of him to keep my 
cans from rust. 

June 7. The red fog has visited us, which makes me surmise 
that we are in the neighborhood of the Cape de Yerde islands. 

Aug. 10. I wear the ring of Gyges, and still remain invisible to 
mankind. 

*59, May 21. Called all my family to witness a stately column of 
cloud, standing like a pillar in the West,— its foot on the sea, and all 
heaven resting on its head. 

July 6. Barbara has written a short and critical sketch of the life 
and character of Beaver as follows : 


DR. TAIL’S JOURNAL. 


115 


Beaver is my dog. Last night God set the sky on Fire, and Beaver barked at 
him for it. Rosalie my Doll thinks beaver is a brown Elphant. She rides on his 
Back without saying a word, beaver knows the Story of Cinderella. I told it to 
him. My pen is poor my ink is pale my hand it shaiks like beavers tail, the End. 

Barbara. 


Aug. 16. A prize ! A sea-turtle. Weight, 320 lbs. 

Oct. 3. Oliver’s son, Philip, by this time, must be pushing him- 
self up toward man’s estate ; and his father, when I meet him 
again, if I ever do in this life, will be middle-aged— perhaps an old 
man ! I realize that my youth is gone I 

’60, Jan. 13. The new experiment with the kelp a perfect success. 

April 3. This afternoon an aerolite dropped from the sky, struck 
our awning, went through it like a bullet, and fell on the binnacle. It 
is as big as a lark’s egg. Query. Did it descend from heaven’s 
gate ? 

May 11. Oiled the piano wires, to keep off the sea-canker. 

June 30. Barbara begins to use the microscope. Every day she 
searches the ribbon grass for its tiny crustaceans. She wants them 
for their briliant colors. She is as fond as an Indian of rich reds, 
greens, and burnished gold. The gayest wardrobe in the world is 
worn by these unseen animalculae. Barbara’s chief picture-gallery is 
her little museum of specimens, fixed on bits of broken glass. I re- 
member seeing at Jena some of Goethe’s water-color paintings of just 
such magnified nothings. The great world is not so wonderful as the 
little. 

July 35. C ut out to-day my last piece of spare canvas for reclothing 
my dory. After this sheeting rots, I shall have no skiff to launch 
for my feathered game. Beaver must do all the work of fetching the 
spoils. And he is growing old and stiff. 

Aug. 10. On examining my accumulated records of latitude and 
longitude, I find that the ship drifts round and round in the same 
old way, within her prescribed circumference. There seems no proba- 
bility of our escaping out of this slow vortex. I feel condemned to 
one perpetual, aimless, hopeless voyage of circumnavigation. 

’63, Jan. 13. Fell asleep this afternoon under the awning, and 
dreamed of Mary Pritchard walking to church through Newbury 
Lane, with a sprig of sweet-fennel in her hand. 

Feb. 37. There is now neither spider nor fly, neither rat nor 
mouse on board the ship. She aches with virtue. 

April 3. Barbara, whose sight is keenly trained to open-air obser- 
vations, has seen Jupiter’s moons with the naked eye. 


116 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


May 31. Been thinking of the old wharf at Salem, and how it 
used to be covered with worm- eaten timbers taken out of decayed 
ships. The channel which the ship-worm bores (as I remember it) is 
big enough to poke your finger in. But I have seen no trace of any 
such invasion of the Coromandel. Our ship is copper- sheathed. 
This seems to have warded off the enemy. I conclude that the 
ship-worm, when it comes at all, comes only from without, and is 
not, as Barbara was, born on board. 

July 28. A sudden discovery I Our log for fourteen years shows 
that the Coromandel never once since the fire drifted South of 33° or 
North of 24° ; but now at last we are in 23£°, and still going north- 
ward ; getting farther and farther from our old locality, and coming 
into new waters. What means this ? 

Aug. 23. The ship for 26 days has been creeping northward. 
She is now outside the fatal basin in which we have been rolling for 
half a generation. Heaven forbid that we shall be blown back again 
into the same dismal circle ! 

Nov. 21. At work to-day farming my sea-grass, — Barbara and 
Beaver frolicking in the fragrant weed. 

Dec. 13. Lat. 19° S. ; Long. 20° W. The Trade Wind once 
more ’.—blowing us to the Northward. Have not felt a breath of 
this wind since it first wafted us, years ago, into the mid-ocean. 
Now we have come once more under the fanning of its brisk wings ! 
0 may it drift us toward Cape St. Koque, or in sight of some pass- 
ing ship ! 

'63, Jan. 9. To-day the sounding-board of the piano split with a 
loud noise,— breaking Barbara’s heart with its fracture. 

April 21. Bearing, Lat. 12° S. ; Long. 29° W, The Trade Wind 
and the Ocean Current are now harnessed to us, like twin steeds to a 
chariot, and we are driving toward warmer climes. Thank heaven 
we must be edging our way into the haunts of the mercantile marine I 

May 13. Jezebel fell as the ship lurched, and the weight of her 
body, doubling her wrist, dislocated it. The poor creature groaned 
with pain. It was pitiful to see Beaver, looking on in sympathy. He 
seemed to regret that he had ever given his life-long critic any just 
ground for her censures. 

June 1. Barbara wrote a letter to-day, addressed to some imagi- 
nary person, whose name she would not tell, and sent it in a plum- 
jar to find its destination by sea. 

July 5. Detected, here and there, spots of mildew and rust on the 
cans, especially on the cans of corn and pears. 


DE. TAIL’S JOUENAL. 


117 


July 28. Lai. 12 S. ; Long. 60 W. The Westward current is in- 
creasing. At this rate of progress, we must sooner or later come to 
the end of the sea. 

“ Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” 

Aug. 12. Suspect that I am about to cross the Line. Our prog- 
ress is at the rate of 37 miles a day. This must by and by take the 
old ship somewhere. 

“Anywhere, anywhere into the world.” 

Sept. 4- At last our solitary geranium, which has been withering 
for two years, has died of old age. Barbara will not allow the dead 
stalk to be pulled up. This plant has been the sole garden of the 
ship. It has put forth, year by year, the only green leaf that Bar- 
bara ever saw. The little handful of soil in which its roots have 
dwelt is the only Mother Earth she has ever touched ; and every 
grain thereof is precious gold. The flower has faded. Let it not be 
the emblem of our green hope, blighted at last ! 

Oct. 13. Great God, the North Star beams on us ! It is our first 
sight of it for a half a generation ! We are in another hemisphere ! 

’ 64 , Jan. 1 . Having no horse-shoe for good luck, I celebrated the 
New Year by nailing an arched fish-bone over Mary’s door, in fore- 
token of better days to come. 

Feb. 17. The doldrums ! The heat ! The rain ! The calm I 
The sunshine ! 0 the worthlessness of life ! 

Feb. 19. Barbara rebels at algebra, but I insist. 

Feb. 28. Would I had a map to tell me where I am ! The ship is 
going almost westward. I have hauled back the drag, and keep a 
small sail hoisted, — for now wind and current unite to speed me on 
my course. Made 46 miles yesterday — 55 to-day. 

March 11. A tropical tornado has blown for 17 hours. Three 
waves, in swift succession, swept over the ship from stem to stern, 
but the trusty drag kept the bow to windward. 

April 1 . Took a manitee. 

April 9. The ocean much salter here than in the southern hemi- 
sphere. 

April 15. When are these wanderings to end ? Perhaps never, 
except with our lives. But I am ashamed to catch myself pitifully 
and childishly murmuring at our lot. We are in the kindly care of 
Him who “ measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted 


118 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth 
in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a 
balance.” 

May 7. How do the butterflies get so far out at sea ? 

May 11. All’s well. 


The foregoing excerpts from Dr. Vail’s meagre diary in- 
dicate the tedious events in the strange life which the 
Coromandel’s company lived on board their wandering 
ship ; and no further quotations need be made from the 
long and dilatory tale. 

But in here dismissing this diary, it should he stated, as 
a matter of curious interest, that Dr. Vail found an ever- 
increasing difficulty in supplying himself with writing- 
materials. During the first three years, he wrote with a 
gold pen ; but at last its diamond-point failed. He then 
plucked from the wing of an albatross its long quills ; but 
these, being soft, were so lavish of ink that he rapidly ex- 
hausted his store of the precious fluid. He then distilled 
from a peculiar sea- weed a dark-green juice, which he kept 
from corrosion in a solution of spirits ; and he fed his new 
ink to his page with niggardly dribblings through a slen- 
der, hollow bone from a dolphin’s dorsal fin. 

Through all the weary years whose sorrowful history 
Rodney Vail daily noted in his Doomsday-Book, the long- 
suffering man still maintained a courage equal to his fate. 
The will, which is the pillar of the mind, still towered 
within him, not only unbroken, but unbent. His hope of 
rescue, though no longer a feverish passion, was still an 
abiding conviction. The indomitable man ceaselessly 
strove to reach the world with messages sent forth over the 
sea in his little dancing shallops of glass. One of the latest 
of these visionary endeavors was a long letter, rolled close- 
ly together, and thrust lengthwise into a wine bottle. It 
was as follows : 


DR. VAIl/S JOURNAL. 


119 


At Sea, Ship Coromandel, 

May 12, 1864. 

Lat. 12 deg. 40 min., N.; Long. 42 deg. 16 min. W. 


My Honored Father, 

If you are yet in the land of the living, receive the salutation of 
your son, who writes these lines on board a dismantled ship, that has 
drifted without sails or crew, for more than sixteen years, over a 
desolate sea, and still rolls and tosses perhaps hundreds of leagues 
from land. 

Our great disaster overtook us on the 1st of October, 1847, in Lat. 
30 deg. 49 min. S., Long. 14 deg. 28 min. E. The ship was struck by 
lightning, set on fire, and hastily abandoned by the captain, crew, and 
passengers — all except Mary, Mrs. Bamley and myself. A deluge of 
rain quenched the conflagration, just in time to save us from imminent 
death. In the midst of the tempest, Mary gave birth to a babe, now 
called Barbara, and grown to be the fairest of her race. 

Since the day of our shipwreck, we have never descried the solid 
earth, nor met a passing vessel, nor looked into other human faces 
than our own. For fourteen years we cruised at a snail’s pace round 
the centre of the South Atlantic, where Capricorn softens the sea into 
a perpetual calm. Eighteen months ago we emerged from this 
charmed circle, and have ever since been steadily creeping northward, 
till we have now sunk the Southern Cross, passed the Equator, and 
found the North Star. 

Having no map, I cannot determine our exact geographical position, 
but we must be verging toward the West Indies. 

Our provisions still hold out, and so do our hopes of deliverance. 

The ship, having been staunchly built, and seldom exposed to rough 
weather, has never sprung a leak ; her white-oak timbers are still 
untouched by dry-rot or the worm. 

Our life on board is mercifully exempt from bodily suffering or 
extreme hardship. We are all well, our chief illness being home- 
sickness ; we eat, we drink, and sometimes we are merry ; our garments 
are not yet fallen to rags and tatters ; we have a few books and our 
reasoning faculties ; we suffer many privations, particularly the 
lamentable loss of fellowship with mankind ; but we are not in 
despair, nor is life a burden. 

My daily toils consist in snaring sea-birds; catching fish, trying out 
oil from the dolphin or the porpoise, gathering rain-water into tanks, 
and, during the hot season, spreading the deck with meadows of sea- 


120 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


weed, drying it in the sun, binding it into bundles, and storing it in 
the forecastle as fuel for Jezebel's kitchen fire. 

Mary, when her fragile strength permits, plies her needle as of old, 
remitting to our use the garments bequeathed to us by our escaped 
fellow-voyagers years ago ; moreover, she gives to Barbara a daily 
lesson both in books and music. 

Our daughter is an inch taller than her mother, an eager and faith- 
ful scholar, and a brave and loving child. 

Many records of our misfortunes have I written, sealed, and cast 
into the deep ; seldom with expectation that the sad story would reach 
the eyes of men ; but this morning I bethought me to write to you on 
these fly-leaves, torn from the Bible my mother gave me the year be- 
fore her death. The fancy seized my mind that as these leaves had 
once been in my father’s house, and had come forth from it, haply they 
might find their way back to it again — as the carrier-dove, uncaged 
under a strange sky, flies unerringly home. 

If this message, therefore, should reach your aged eyes, bearing 
tidings to you that I am yet in life and health, I pray you send me 
your instant benediction ; for a father’s blessing may go round the 
world to seek and find his son. Have I been so undutiful to you that 
Heaven, which permitted even the prodigal to return, should keep me 
an exile forever from my father’s house ? Bitter and sorrowful is the 
fate that parts me from the duty and care I owe to your declining 
years. In the midst of this fathomless sea, my heart cries to you from 
the still deeper depths of my love and grief. But there is an end to 
all things, even to calamity. God keep your white hairs above the 
grave, till I look upon your face once more. 

Witness my hand and seal, 

In love and reverence, 

Your son, 

To WlLBBAHAM YaIL, RODNEY VAIL. 

Salem, Mass. 

U. S. A. 


CHAPTER IX. 


MARY VAIL S JOURNAL, 


RS. VAIL, like her husband, kept a diary, but of a 



A-V- L different kind. It was a record of inward, not of 
outward life — a register of thoughts and feelings, not of 
wind and weather. It did not read like a journal written 
on shipboard— least of all like a chronicle of shipwreck, or 
of personal suffering. A stranger could not have derived 
from it a continuous narrative of the original disaster and 
subsequent privations. 

She wrote it not daily, but weekly — generally on Sunday 
mornings. Her delicate handwriting did not wear out her 
pen, nor exhaust her ink ; and yet her inkstand finally grew 
dry under the double drought of summer and of time ; after 
which she wrote, as her husband did, from the juice of the 
sea-weed. 

Mrs. Vail’s spirit was unconsciously breathed into her 
note-book, and ever afterward exhaled from its opened 
pages as sweetly as if violets had been pressed between the 
leaves. 

Living habitually in the inner, not the outer world, she 
was a mystic — a dreamer. Her true life was in her affec- 
tions and meditations. Exterior things were important to 
her only as they ministered to these innermost and passion- 
less passions. 

Devoted to the Puritan faith, she had long ago appropri- 
ated state-room No. 7— (that number being, as she thought, 


121 


122 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


mystical and hallowed) — for a cloister, a chapel, a Gethsem- 
ane ; to which she habitually resorted alone, and in 
which, after closing the door and locking it behind her, 
she bent her knee and with a low-murmuring voice prayed. 

She made a daily pilgrimage to this tear-consecrated 
shrine. 

Dwelling within herself, the warp and woof of this in- 
ward life, as she wove it into her journal, consisted of three 
threads — wifely love, maternal solicitude, and religious 
devotion. 

Such a diary, being chiefly occupied with setting up 
monuments and landmarks of the writer’s affectional and 
spiritual experiences, would be interesting mainly to mys- 
tical minds like her own. 

Accordingly, no other exhibition of its pages can judi- 
ciously be made here than to furnish biographical partic- 
ulars concerning the personages in this tale — especially con- 
cerning the character and career of her daughter. 


1848. . . I find myself running to the calendar to watch the spring’s 
return — just as, before Barbara was born, I waited the date of her 
birth ; and I have settled my mind to have fine weather two weeks 
from to-day. 

. . . My babe fills me with mystery and gratitude. I dare hardly 
speak my feelings aloud — I am so grateful. I never felt so like pon- 
dering, and keeping all my thoughts concerning the high calling of 
motherhood as now. I say little but to God. 

. . . How often I think of dear Rosa Chantilly and her family I 
How lovingly she looked for us at Cape Town ! How agonized she 
must have been at our calamity ! How little she now suspects, while 
her boy Philip stands at her knee, and asks her to tell him about 
Aunt Mary, that Aunt Mary is not under the ocean waves, but riding 
peacefully over their glassy tops ! 

’49. . . Let me not complain of my tempe.st-tossed fate. For, am I 
bereaved of anything vital to my heart’s joy ? Have I not my 
darlings ? If time cannot content a woman’s life, what can ? Having 
my husband and child, have I not everything ? Has Heaven smitten 


MARY VAIL’S JOURNAL. 


123 


me ? It has blessed me. O my soul, be thou superior to the halcyon, 
and build thy nest in peace on the rolling wave I 

. . . The sun has burned baby’s face like unto papa's ; and her 
little cheeks are peeling off into velvety flakes, like faded rose-leaves. 
She wants Bel to be always carrying her up and down the deck, so 
that her little bright eyes may look off at the water. What a wise 
look a babe has 1 Barbara gazes on the waves as if she had been 
familiar with their mysteries from the foundation of the world. 

. . . Rodney came hurriedly down stairs, and asked me if I had 
room for two new lodgers in our floating palace. I smiled at the sad 
jest. He then disclosed a couple of Cape pigeons which he had just 
caught alive. Barbara cooed at them — more dove-like than they. 

’ 50 . . . Strange that I bear my body’s pains better than my soul’s 
joys. Why is it that great love, great yearning, great emotion of 
any pleasing and ecstatic kind — even the farthest removed from 
grief and distress — should make me suffer ? My kisses on Barbara’s 
cheek, my love, my prayers — these, although they are the very chief- 
est delights of which my sad life is composed, nevertheless all go 
quivering through me so as to make me suffer rather than enjoy. 
What is suffering but painful joy ? 

. . . Among Barbara’s new acquirements is her discovery of the 
evening star. After dark, for two or three nights past, she has stood 
on a chair, gazing out of the little round window of my state-room ; 
and when at last the star appears, she is so happy, and calls us all to 
look. 

*61, . . My husband has been writing some strange and weird 
verses, which I will copy and save : 

The Two Ladders. 

Benighted in my pilgrimage, alone, 

And footsore, for the path to heaven grew steep, 

I looked for Jacob’s pillow of a stone, 

In hope of Jacob’s vision in my sleep : 

Then in my dream, whereof I quake to tell. 

Not np from earth to heaven, but— O sad sight I — 

The ladder was let down from earth to hell 1 — 

Whereon, ascending from the deep abyss, 

Came fiery spirits, who with dismal hiss, 

Made woeful clamor of their lost delight, 

And stung my eyelids open, till in fright, 

I caught my staff, and at the dead of night, 

I, who toward heaven and peace had halted so, 

Was fleet of foot to flee from hell and woe. 


124 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


. . . The little chapel-room was chilly to-day from rain and damp- 
ness, but with my shawl wrapped round me, I knelt and received a 
blessing. Having so often known this rest and blessedness, why do 
I so often persist in bearing a burden which I know that in one 
happy, heavenly moment I can lay down ? 

... I rebuked Barbara for saying, I Can’t. My darling, said I, 
you can do anything if you only try. No, she replied, I might try 
till I am gray to fly, and never could do it. What shrewd replies 
children make, and how careful we ought to be in our speeches to 
them ! 

... I was, to-day, seized with a cold, fainting turn. It made me 
think of dying. Indeed, why should I live longer ! What useful 
work can I do, with these thin, white, feeble hands ? 

5 53 . . . The dear little girl is so lovable. I feel so safe about her 
spiritual welfare. The responsibilities of motherhood weigh upon 
me like a sweet burden, when I think of my feeble attempts to edu- 
cate Barbara. Not even a mother — no, none but God alone — can 
fitly train a child’s immortal soul. 

. . . Why is it that a man so absorbs a woman’s thought and life? 
How beautiful is Rodney’s nature ! How grand his resources 1 
If he were among men he might prove liis genius and power ; but 
how could the world, even if he were in it, ever know his purity and 
tenderness? These are known only to God— and to me. “ My be- 
loved is mine, and I am his.” 

’54. . . Barbara wants to know all about the school-children whom 
I used to teach in Salem, particularly Lucy Wilmerding. She teases 
me to read to her again and again Rosa Chantilly’s letter about little 
Philip and his squirrel Juju. These playmates — Lucy, Philip, and 
Juju — seem to live as vividly in Barbara’s fancy as if they were real 
flesh and blood before her eyes. What a charming necromancer 
childhood is ! 

. . . The weather is fine now, and I shall be of good cheer, for it 
is well with him whom my soul loveth. 0, for a little more bodily 
strength ! I want to carry a smiling face before Rodney. If I live 
I shall teach Barbara to begin her love where mine now is. I cannot 
conceive of a sweeter future for Barbara than a faithful love. 

. . . To-day a new mysterious feeling came over me which I never 
before detected— a kind of awe, or waiting, or listening to learn what 
God will do for me — and an agony of fear lest, by reason of my un- 
worthiness, I should fail to receive His blessing. 

. . . Taught Barbara how to cross-stitch. 


MARY TAIL’S JOURNAL. 


125 


'55. . . How I rejoice in my husband’s love ! I am kept in sweet 
humiliation by it. The chords of my heart are set to the harmony of 
love for this heroic man. 0 that the flame may always burn, so that 
he shall never fail to see it in my cheeks, eyes, and soul ! 

. . . Alas, that Barbara has no playmates — no children to keep her 
company ! A childless wife is to be pitied ; but a childless child— a 
child without children for companions— a child who has never seen 
any other child than herself — O this is pitiful indeed ! God is a 
father to the fatherless ; may He reveal himself once again a little 
child for Barbara’s sake 1 

'56. . . Rodney is right when he calls me a dreamer. To dream is 
to charm away care. My little chapel is my dream-land. What are 
good dreams but sweet prayers ? What are the best prayers but the 
sweetest dreams ? 0 the mystical union of the soul with heaven I 
. . . All Rosa Chantilly’s hopes, promises, and prophecies about 
her little son Philip, which used to fill her letters with such a sweet 
extravagance of mother-love, are repeating themselves in my own 
heart over Barbara. O that I might be able to share with Rosa the 
delight of seeing my child brought up, as hers is, amid the advantages 
of a home, of schools, of churches, and of cultivated life 1 

... I love to read Rodney’s letters to me over and over. Is there 
anything sweeter than old love-letters which, when read again in after 
years, find all their early prophecies fulfilled in the actual love which 
they had first predicted only in fancy and hope ? 

... I was startled to-day. Hearing a soft footstep in the cabin, 1 
looked out of my room, and thought I saw the figure of Miss Marjorie 
of Salem. It was the same sort of strange bonnet, cape, and cut of 
dress, the same kind of old veil, and the same feeble and decrepit 
step. This surprise was one of Barbara’s tricks. She had contrived 
to rig herself into a counterfeit image of Miss Marjorie, whose 
daguerreotype is among our souvenirs. 

. . . Barbara is developing housekeeping propensities and a keen 
relish for dress. She makes a lavish use of our store of lady’s ward- 
robes. She begged her father yesterday for permission to open a trunk 
whose contents have heretofore been opened only for airing, not for 
use. Rodney gave way to her importunity. It contained Mrs. At- 
will’s wedding-dress — creamy-white satin. Barbara dressed herself 
in it, and appeared at table as a bride, though not “ adorned for her 
husband.” I wonder if Barbara will be vain of her beauty. If her 
sun-burn were off, she would be very, very handsome. She is looking 
more and more like her father, and her blue eyes and light hair are 


126 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


fit outdoor mates for sky and sun. I do not dare to tell her how wild 
and beautiful she is. Still, she is nothing but an overgrown child — 
full of animal spirits, and as restless as a leopard. 

’ 58 . . . I have been looking over my memorials of Barbara — though 
she does not know it. All the little precious scraps of letters which 
she has written to me — all her tiny bits of love and bad spelling — all 
these I have kept from the beginning. Often and often, now that she 
pursues graver studies, and lives a more discontented life, do I shut 
myself up, take out these records of her happy childhood, and weep 
over them. 0 how hard it was for me to consent to her growing up 
at all. I always wanted her to remain a babe, just as she was at first, 
or never to be any older than only to answer back smile for smile. 
How happy she was when she first began to totter alone about the 
cabin, tumbling down and getting up again ! How restless, aspiring, 
and disappointed she is now l She is outgrowing me — I cannot hold 
her. She is strong like her father, but not patient. 

. . . Another change has come over Barbara’s thoughts. When she 
was younger and more childish, she asked endless questions about 
Philip and his squirrel. This was her favorite story. But now she 
seldom — almost never — speaks Philip’s name. My young maiden, like 
many another of her age, prefers the companionship of girls, not boys. 
So Barbara takes to Lucy Wilmerding, and drops Philip. The strong 
fellowship of girls with girls amounts sometimes to a positive repug- 
nance to associate with the opposite sex — as I often used to notice 
in my school. The last vestige of Barbara’s childhood has gone, 
and O how am I to bring myself to think of her as a predestined 
woman ! 

*60. . . In the midst of this gray, hazy weather, I have been recall- 
ing the bright flowers of New England. At this moment, I can see the 
pimpernel ; the larkspur ; the celandine among the Salem rocks ; the 
purple and yellow heart’s-ease — which, even to think of, brings a little 
ease to my weary heart ; the mignonette, which I can smell seven 
thousand miles away from Pritchard farm.— Ah, shall we ever again 
see Grandfather’s dandelions in the meadow, or the hollyhocks in 
Newbury Lane ? Shall the crickets ever again chirp a cheerful wel- 
come to our feet in the green grass? Are the morning-glories still 
on the old garden -wall ? Do the honeysuckles still climb the pillars 
of the east porch? Fade, sweet blossoms, if you must, and perish 
in the raw New England winds 1— but you grow perennial in the 
garden of my memory ! 

*61. . . My husband wrote a bit of pleasantry to-day, which I 


MARY VAIL’S JOURNAL. 


127 


transcribe here for preservation. I am glad that he can smile at his 
misfortunes in this way : 

From our own Correspondent. 

Mid-Ocean News Agency, 

Tropic of Capricorn , Aug. 12th. 

The chief attraction at this sea- view resort, during the watering- 
place season, is the unique establishment of Dr. Rodney Vail. 

This painstaking caterer has his usual number of guests who stay 
with him all the year round. 

Bon Vivants will be glad to know that he retains at the head of his 
cuisine the well-known Mrs. Jezebel, whose carte du jour for to-day 
includes the following delicacies : 

Sea-weed soup, 

Ham du Diable, 

Lobster a la tin can. 

Sausage Porpoise, 

Green Peas, 

Jam de Raspberrie, 

Kelp, 

Blubber, 

Equatorial Current Jelly, 

Note .— (The wines at this establishment were a choice stock that came into pos- 
session of Dr. Vail in 1847.) 

The water-prospect which the host of the Hotel Coromandel fur- 
nishes to his guests is one of the most extensive in the world, and the 
facilities for bathing are without limit. 

Among the guests registered on the books of the Coromandel are 

the delicate and beautiful Mrs. M V , who is a pronounced 

brunette, and her charming daughter Miss B V , who is a 

blonde of a pure typ e,nez a la Grec, and hair borrowing a sheen from 
the Field of the Cloth of Gold. 

Dr. Vail’s unique establishment still maintains its old position on 
the very top of the wave. 

*63. . . It is long since I have communed with my journal. Sorrow 
for our fate, and despair of seeing Rodney and our darling Barbara in 
their deserved sphere in life, together with anxiety on account of Bar- 
bara’s restlessness and misery, have made me loath to tell my troub- 
les save to God alone — not even to my little book. 

. . . How the folks at home would smile at my strange needles and 
thread ! 


128 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


. . . We occasionally have a dramatic entertainment in which 
Rodney, Barbara, and I personate the characters, and Jezebel consti- 
tutes the audience. Sometimes Beaver is one of the actors. Barbara 
is so intense in her acting that she often utterly confounds the poor 
dog’s brains, so that Beaver runs off in fright, and breaks up the per- 
formance. 

. . . Barbara’s birthday. Sixteen years ! 0 that fiery night, 
which I am grateful not to remember ! How it must burn in Rod- 
ney’s memory ! My own mind recalls nothing but the babe. Even 
Fate itself (if there be an evil genius of that name) could not blot out 
a babe from its mother’s mind. Baby Barbara ! How vividly I re- 
call the little thing in her babyhood ! — fat, crooning, and brown as a 
berry !— sitting on the cabin floor against the velvet cushion around the 
mast. I look back to her happy face as it was when she sat with her 
scissors cutting out patterns of all the animals in Noah’s Ark. How 
merrily she used to mimic all kinds of noises — such as our own voices, 
the bird screams, the wind, the water-splashings, Beaver’s bark, Bel’s 
odd speeches, everything ! How she used to deck the ship with wind- 
mills and dog-vanes I Wliat wonderful sayings she uttered to her 
puppets and pets ! How her happy laugh went piercing through the 
ship like the note of a canary in its cage I But now Barbara’s spirit 
is clouded — she is stormy-hearted. ‘ ‘ Mother, ” said she to-day, “ I re- 
fuse to be satisfied. Try as I may to be patient, an inward pain 
consumes me. I long, I yearn, I waste my sleep, I break my heart. 
I will not be reconciled to this fate. O why, why do I burn with so 
many desires for liberty, except that I am to enjoy it at last ! If I 
could be content with this present lot, God would see no reason for 
giving me a better one. So I shall complain to him night and day.” 
When Barbara spoke in this wild strain this morning, she brought 
tears to my eyes, whereupon she chid herself for troubling me with 
her troubles. The dear child struggles hard to control herself, but 
she has a nature so wild and strong that she cannot curb it. Her 
father never checks her. He simply says that her storms of grief 
must have outward vent, or else they would mildew her heart with 
inward blight. But mothers are not like fathers. O that I could 
give my darling the wings of a dove, that she might fly to the utter- 
most parts of the earth and be at rest ! 

Mrs. Vail’s journal contained many other records simi- 
lar to the above ; records never of the ship and its perils; 
records seldom of storms and fogs ; records hardly of sick- 


MARY VAIL’S JOURNAL. 


129 


ness and watchings ; but records mainly of the gentle 
writer’s heart-yearnings for the welfare of her little 
family. 

It is noticeable that her diary, while it chronicled her 
constant sorrow at the pitiful exclusion of her husband and 
daughter from the world and its privileges, gave no token 
that she bemoaned her own lack of these same blessings. 
She seemed to forget that she too was fitted, like the rest, to 
enjoy the society from which they all alike were banished. 
Her thought was not for herself, but for them. 

Among all her earthly desires, the chief was that God 
would mercifully unchain the captive princess, BarbaraVail. 

Mary’s allusion to the strangeness of her needles and 
thread, suggests a word of explanation. Always an adept 
at needle- work, she was never without a task for her busy 
fingers. Her state-room was a woman’s workshop. It was 
always strewn about with garments in process either of 
altering, mending, or making. She made few, altered 
many, and mended all. Barbara was gradually instructed 
in the same art, though she found plain -sewing more irk- 
some than painting in water-colors, and would give up 
either at any moment to run to the piano. Mrs. Vail’s 
needle was as industrious below the deck as Rodney’s 
harpoon above it. Her habit was to sit on a low rocking- 
chair and sew, while Barbara stood at her knee, reciting 
her lessons or reading aloud. 

Fabrics were plenty, but needles and thread became 
scarce. 

The question, “ What becomes of all the world’s pins 
and needles ? ” has often excited the speculations of inge- 
nious essayists ; and the Coromandel was like a well-regu- 
lated house on land in the extraordinary facility with 
which the old hulk would hide away and never again 
discover its needles and pins. 


130 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“I think,” said Barbara, “ that the ship must swallow 
them.” 

Certain it was that Mrs. Vail’s needles, which she valued 
beyond price, disappeared one by one as if they had taken 
to themselves the legs of cunning insects and run away in 
the night. 

“ My thread,” said Mary, “ I can account for : I have 
used it up ; not a spool of cotton, not a skein of silk, not 
a ball of yarn is left ; and yet I know where every needleful 
of it has gone : but how the needles have vanished is a 
puzzle I cannot solve.” 

“ Well,” said Rodney, “we must devise new needles and 
thread.” 

At first he proposed to cut one of the wires of the piano 
into needle-lengths, but Barbara objected to his inflicting 
such a wound on her stringed instrument, and, with elo- 
quent menace, warned off the intruder from his proposed 
depredation on her property. Afterward he picked to 
pieces a silver watch, left by Mr. Jansen in state-room No. 
5, and changed its mainspring from “ tick, tick, tick,” to 
“stitch, stitch, stitch.” But, after repeated experiments, 
he found nothing that so satisfied Mary’s delicate touch 
as the slender fin-bones of the flying-fish, for these were of 
nature’s finest horn, lively and flexible, with prickly points 
that grew sharper instead of duller with constant use. So 
Mary had strange wings given to her flying fingers. 

Thread was made by unraveling woven fabrics, and 
re-twisting the weak filaments into a strength sufficient for 
pulling them through the cloth in sewing. Bed-sheets, 
table-covers, crash-towels, flannels, and silk skirts were 
frayed out to furnish the ship’s Penelope with daily thread. 

“ But my needlework/’ said Mary, smiling, “is stronger 
than Penelope’s, for hers kept unraveling because her lord 
was absent, but mine holds so tight that my husband never 
can get beyond my fingers’ reach.” 


MARY VAIL’S JOURNAL. 


131 


One day when Mary’s room-door was shut, and she was 
busy at work inside, making an Oriental garb for Barbara, 
consisting of alternate red and blue flannel, patterned from 
a picture of a Turkish woman in one of the ship’s books of 
travel, she heard a gentle knock at her door, and on rising 
to open it, discovered Rodney in the act of pinning to the 
maple-wood panel a placard with this inscription : 

Mary Vail, 

SEAMSTRESS, 

Cuts and fits garments in the fashions of all the 
uncivilized nations of the globe. 


CHAPTER X. 


THE CAGED BIRD. 

“^v~rEVER again will I read this tale of mockery,” said 

JLN Barbara, shutting a little volume from which she 
had been entertaining her mother with the fable of 
Tantalus. 

“ Tantalus ! ” exclaimed the maiden, with energy. 
“He long ago left the earth, and I now take his place. It 
is I, not he, from whom the cup is perpetually snatched.” 

In the Coromandel’s cabin, Barbara’s room was No. 13 : 
— a double room on the larboard side, with two round 
brass-rimmed windows, looking out forever on the sea. 
Through the solid glass panes, Barbara often gazed by day- 
light, moonlight, and starlight — with perpetual longing for 
the shore and the world. 

Nevertheless, the little chamber was not so barren that 
her eyes instinctively fled from it to rest elsewhere. Its 
wooden walls were draped with showy upholstery which 
the fair occupant had arranged with her own ingenious 
hands, from a set of crimson-damask curtains found among 
Madame D’Arblay’s confiscated stock of household equi- 
page. Against this brilliant background, a few little 
pictures and trinkets were hung in tasteful order. This 
gay apartment, with its animating, almost fiery color, led 
her father to say, 

“ Barbara, you live like a gold-bug inside a moss-rose.” 

To this room Mrs. Vail had a habit of taking her sewing 

132 


THE CAGED BIRD. 


133 


for an hour or ’two a day, and Barbara would there read 
aloud to her from the few books of the ship’s library, almost 
every one of which she had thus read several times through, 
and yet she still kept on reading them, in favorite portions, 
again and again. 

“A good book,” said Dr. Yail to Barbara, “ will bear 
perpetual devouring, and can never be gnawed to the 
hone.” 

It was while reading from a small well-known volume of 
“ Ancient Myths and Fables,” that she suddenly broke 
forth into her fretful allusion to Tantalus. 

“My dear daughter,” replied her mother, trying to com- 
fort her, and trying also to comfort herself, “there is one 
supreme solace for all human souls.” 

“Pray, mother, tell me what that is.” 

“ My child,” returned her mild monitor, “ have I not 
taught you that though we may lose this world, we shall 
gain the next ? ” 

“0 mother,” exclaimed the daughter, “I want the 
earth first ! ” 

Barbara was like any other young and growing plant 
that seeks to thrust its root into the ground before open- 
ing its flower to the sky. 

The maiden, after finishing her reading, laid aside her 
book, took an empty plum-jar in one hand, a folded letter 
in the other, left her mother, and went on deck. 

Mrs. Yail returned to her own room, where she was 
joined by her husband. 

“0 Rodney,” she exclaimed with a sigh, “would to 
God that our daughter might once more be as happy as 
when she knew too little of the world to wish and weep 
for it ! ” 

“ Mary,” replied Rodney, “had we brought up Barbara 
like a white mouse in a wicker-basket, feeding her as if 
she had only a comely body, but no mind ; had we never 


134 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


given her a hint that beyond the horizon’s rim there dwiell 
millions of human beings, her kindred, who for centuries 
have occupied the earth, greening it with cultivation, 
spangling it with cities, glorifying it with arts, bestrewing 
it with happy homes ; had we kept Barbara in ignorance 
of this lore — which is every child’s right, even though it is 
this child’s misery- -she might have lived like some un- 
winged bird whose instinct had never been awakened 
toward the sky. If we could have foreseen our long cap- 
tivity in this boundless dungeon of time and space, we 
might have led our daughter blindfold into a more igno- 
rant and less restless life ; we might have deadened in 
her the capacity for knowledge in order to protect her 
against a few noble risks of sublime wretchedness. But 
we have done her no such wrong. Y ou and I have pict- 
ured to her the world’s beauties and pleasures. She wishes 
to enjoy them. It is a natural wish : never quench such 
a flame : it is Barbara’s vestal fire : let it burn.” 

Mrs. Yail, in conducting the unique seminary styled 
Topsy-Turvy College, not only gave to Barbara the old- 
time school lessons which she had long before given to her 
classes in Salem, but she carried her solitary pupil as 
much farther as she could from the books at her com- 
mand, and from her recollections of history and litera- 
ture. 

“The imagination,” said Kodney, “is a child’s chief in- 
tellectual faculty. It needs more food than the rest of 
the mind. You, Mary, are a Puritan’s daughter ; your 
ancestors were noble but mistaken zealots who sought to 
crush the imagination out of human nature, and who re- 
garded red as too extravagant a color for the rose. Forget 
the prejudices of the Puritans, and let Barbara’s thoughts 
run riot among all the rich and beautiful things which 
she can conjure up before her mind’s eye. Give a child 
like Barbara a few picturesque facts that please her sense 


THE CAGED BIRD. 


135 


of the beautiful, and out of these slender materials she 
will create for herself whole worlds of beauty. The soul 
out-hungers the body. It - is not enough that Barbara 
should feed on pemmican, porpoise, and flamingo ; she 
needs Shakespeare, the Apocalypse, and the Sphinx. ” 

Dr. Vail, acting on this theory, gave to Barbara, day by 
day, and year by year, an ever-increasing store of beauti- 
ful images, both from Nature, as interpreted by the dis- 
coveries of science, and from Art, as embodied in the cre- 
ations of poetry. 

On the one hand, he unwove for her the picturesque 
woof of the rainbow, and, with a piece of broken chande- 
lier for a prism, divided a ray of light into its seven parts. 
He pointed out to her through a wretched little micro- 
scope (the only one he had), how the tiny red shrimp of 
the seaweed, though invisible to the naked eye, is never- 
theless pursued by the great whale ; in other words, how 
the smallest creature in the ocean maintains the life of 
the largest. He dipped up a little sea- water, set it to 
evaporate in the sun, took a grain of the salt which was 
left, and showed her that this was of the same model as a 
pyramid of Egypt. He put his finger on his daughter’s 
pulse and taught her how the clock of life keeps time. 

On the other hand, in supplementing these scientific 
lessons with their poetic counterparts, he gave to Barbara 
the pretty legends and tales which constitute the common 
inheritance of childhood, and of which no child can be 
deprived without the loss of its patrimony. He taught 
her winged feet to run over the race-course with Atalanta, 
and to stop with that maiden in order to pick up the 
apples of the Hesperides — (Barbara always losing her own 
heart to the cunning lover who played the pretty trick). 
He led her forth on little picnics to Mount Helicon, and 
taught her to dip her cup in the Fount of Aganippe, slak- 
ing many an inward thirst in that innocent way. He set 


136 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


her on the back of Alexander’s careering horse Bucephalils, 
or in a statelier seat on a white elephant of the King of 
Pontus. He sailed voyages with her to the Island of 
Avilion, drawn thither by mystic attraction to its Castle 
of Loadstone. He bewitched her with the Phoenix that 
could rise out of the fire, at which she marveled the more 
because all the birds that she had seen could rise only out 
of the water. He sent her to the Cave of the Forty 
Thieves, to say “ Open Sesame,” and to bring away the 
priceless treasures for her own. He lured her to follow 
the sylvan wanderings of Paul and Virginia, and to love 
Paul more than she could Virginia. He permitted her to 
make friends with IJndine the Water Nymph, and to 
inquire of that strange creature how so delightful a thing 
as marriage could bring so many troubles to the bride. 

All these facts and fictions which her father taught her, 
whether from science or poetry (though modern science is 
rapidly becoming the chief poetry of the world), all these 
fascinating marvels Barbara received at first with implicit 
belief. She found no difficulty in crediting the most 
impossible tales. Thus, as she had never watched the 
slow process of building a house stone by stone, she had 
all the more reason for accepting the swift and easy archi- 
tecture of Aladdin’s Palace. With most children, it is 
only when they are very young that they believe in Santa 
Claus and his reindeers ; the eclipse of faith comes early. 
But with Barbara, this beautiful credulity lingered long ; 
and a happy thing it was in her case, for it gave her the 
magic of Midas wherewith to turn her fancies to a fine 
gold which the sea’s rust could never dim. 

Hr. Vail’s method of educating this strong, bright, 
beautiful girl, produced upon her two opposite effects ; 
first, the awakening of her mind to the sunshine of clear 
intelligence and aspiration, and next, the gradual becloud- 
ing of this light by a gloomy sense of her exile and im- 


THE CAGED BIRD. 


137 


prisonment. But something like this occurs in every 
cultivated person’s history, and is the natural result of all 
true discipline of mind and heart. Such an education as 
Barbara was receiving — which was wise and rich beyond 
her power to estimate — would have nobly doomed her, 
even amid the pleasantest of surroundings, to a gentle but 
perpetual discontent with her soul’s estate ; for it would 
inevitably have roused within her that mortal or rather 
that immortal restlessness and impatience which all ideal 
natures must forever feel, not only toward fate and circum- 
stance, but toward life itself. 

“0 for the land!” sighed Barbara. “ Shall my eyes 
ever behold it ? Shall my feet ever walk on it ? Shall my 
heart ever rest in it ? ” 

The homesick family found a frequent solace in talking 
to each other of the land. To these castaways the grassy 
earth was an evergreen Yale of Cashmere — a Garden of 
Eden which, if they could find it, would be Paradise 
Begained. Barbara questioned them incessantly about the 
land. What was it like? Was it as wide the sea ? 
Was it as beautiful as the sky ? Could it truly hold up 
great buildings and palaces, without breaking under their 
heavy weight ? What did the graves look like, that were 
dug in it ? How could the little snow-flakes cover it out 
of sight in a single night ? And would the Coromandel 
ever get to it ? 

Such questions — hundreds and thousands of them — Bar- 
bara, child of the sea, asked concerning the shore. She 
took delight in her father’s portrayals of mountains, hills, 
forests, meadows, rivers, and green grass. Without wait- 
ing to see the solid earth, she adopted God’s creative 
opinion of it that it was “very good.” 

Dr. Vail had traveled in Europe, and seen Switzerland 
with its mountains, Scotland with its lakes, the Rhine with 
its ruins, English cottages with their ancient oaks, and the 


138 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


' French vineyard-regions with their grapes. All these 
pictures, he painted over again to Barbara’s fancy, and 
yet he said, 

“ My daughter, the fairest of all lands is your own ; for, 
though you were born at sea, you are of New England line- 
age ; you must always think of your mother’s and your 
father’s country as yours. The English colonist speaks of 
the mother-country ; the German exile, of the fatherland. 
You must have a country. In whatever part of the earth 
you happen to go ashore, remember that you are an Ameri- 
can, a New Englander, a Yankee. Yes,” he added humor- 
ously, “ we are part of the floating population of Massa- 
chusetts.” 

Dr. Yail felt, moreover, that Barbara must have not only 
a country, but a home in it. The home that he chose for 
her was a certain New England farm within sight of the 
sea-coast. It was the Pritchard country-seat. Barbara 
so often had the place described to her, that its landmarks 
were vivid to her mind. She frequently visited it in fancy 
almost as if she had strolled through it in fact. 

“ Tell me once again,” she would sometimes say to her 
father, “all about Grandfather Pritchard’s house and 
farm.” 

“ Well, my child,” Dr. Yail would answer, “ it is a staid, 
plain, white cottage. It stands a little back from the 
road, not on a hill, but on a rolling knoll. The real charm 
of the house is the spacious piazza in the rear, looking 
toward the east and the ocean. Dp the pillars of this 
piazza run clambering ivies, honeysuckles, and roses, mak- 
ing a tangled mass of foliage that changes color with the 
changing seasons. Stone fences, heaved awry by frost, 
give an antique air to the farm ; and I have seen many a 
red squirrel racing over their jagged tops. A row of Lom- 
bardy poplars, tall and slender, and sometimes shivering in 
the east wind, can be seen from fishing-smacks for miles 


THE CAGED BIRD. 


139 


and miles ; and I wish they were now in sight from the 
Coromandel. Have I forgotten the garden ? 0 no ! It 
is a quaint old garden, which, from spring to autumn, be- 
ginning with crocuses and ending with dahlias, bejewels 
all the months between with New England’s familiar 
flowers. Familiar ? Ah, my daughter, I forget that you 
never saw them ! There are morning-glories, lilacs, heart’s- 
ease, white lilies, unpink pinks, tongue- biting nasturtiums, 
and sweet-fennel to take to church.” 

“ Don’t forget the fruit-trees,” Mrs. Vail would say, un- 
willing that any part of the sweetly-remembered farm 
should go unrepeated in the tale. 

“ No, I do not forget them. A fruit-tree is an angel from 
Heaven, sent back to restore Eden on earth. The fruit- 
trees on Pritchard farm bore no forbidden fruits. Grand- 
father Pritchard denied his fruits to nobody. He even 
planted cherry-trees for the birds and the school-boys.” 

“ Go on,” Barbara would exclaim, always the most eager 
of the listeners. 

“ You may tell the rest, Barbara. Let me see if you 
have forgotten any of it.” 

Barbara would then strike in, and add a few touches to 
the oft-painted picture somewhat as follows : 

“ Grapes,” she would say, “ grow there, which the frost 
mellows, and which are not pressed into wine, as in some 
countries, but are eaten one by one, like cherries from the 
Coromandel’s fruit- jars. Turkeys, which are a species of 
domestic fowl, wander about the clover-fields, feeding on 
insects called crickets and grasshoppers, in order to be fat 
for Thanksgiving-Day — a festival common in that country. 
Near the house is a well of pure, fresh water, more cool 
and sweet than the rain that we catch in our casks. The 
rim of this well is called a curb, and has green moss about 
it. The bucket is dipped and hoisted by a great beam 
that was once a chestnut-tree, growing in the woods. 


140 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Some little boxes or houses for tiny birds called wrens or 
martins, are scattered about the lawn, set up on high masts. 
Pigeons, which are swift-winged land-birds that fly like 
our sea-gulls, live in a large family in the eaves of the 
barn. Horses eat corn in their own house, which is called 
a stable, and they crunch the hard grain with a noise such 
as we hear at night in the cabin when the waves splash 
against the ship’s side. Cows, which are horned and 
harmless creatures, eat grass all day, and come home at 
night to empty their milk into the dairy-maid’s pail.” 

So Barbara would go on, giving item after item as in a 
school-girl’s recitation. 

Dr. Vail took imaginary walks with Barbara through 
the farm, and through the whole region far and near, 
pointing out to her the fringed-gentians in their season ; 
explaining to her how every wild rose of the thickets has 
five pink petals, one for each finger and thumb of the 
hand that plucks it ; telling her when the golden-rods and 
asters bloom ; and adding, with each new recital of the 
familiar story, some point of beauty not named before. 

Dr. Vail’s affection for Grandfather Pritchard’s coun- 
try-seat was because it was Mary’s birthplace. The whole 
farm was sacred ground in his eyes — hallowed like the 
graveyard on the hill near by. He had trodden every 
acre of this farm in company with Mary, during the 
happy summer when they first took each other by the 
hand to walk the way of life together. 

Dr. Vail knew well enough that this quiet farm pre- 
sented not a magnificent, but only a charming landscape, 
yet he never allowed a fairer vision of any other part of 
the earth’s surface to dispute supremacy in Barbara’s mind 
with this beloved spot. Fly as her winged fancy might 
round the whole earth, her father always lured it back to 
this sylvan home, to build here (and here only) its familiar 
nest. Often and often, on a moonlight night, the little 


THE CAGED BIRD. 


141 


ship-wrecked band would revive their reminiscences of the 
old homestead, and while the waves were rippling round 
the ship, would set out on a journey up and down Grand- 
father Pritchard’s fields ; so that this far away New-Eng- 
land farm went ever floating with these wanderers like a 
green island in the midst of the sea. 

“ 0 that I could once — if only once — see the land ! ” 
exclaimed Barbara to Jezebel. 

“Law, chile,” replied the old woman — “want to see 
de Ian’ ? Well, honey, jist shet dem blue eyes a minit 
like a blind man, and look inside — kind o’ deep down — 
dis way — and you can see anything you want. What’s de 
good book say ? ‘ Havin’ eyes, dey see not.’ Wei den, if 

folks, when deir eyes is open, can’t see, dat means for ’em 
to shet deir eyes and try in dat way. Lawks, my lamb, 
more tings is seen by shettin’ de eyes, dan by openin’ ’em. 
Want to see de lan’ ? Law, chile, jest shet yer eyes ! 
Dar ! — now wait a minit for de vision to come. 0 how 
green de grass looks ! 0 how de big trees shake deir tops 

in de wind ! 0 how sweet de little birds sing ! 0 honey, 

look out dar — dar is de lan’ ! Don’t you see it ? Now 
open yer eyes and it’s all gone ! ” 

Barbara was unequal to Jezebel in the faculty of inner 
sight. 

“ 0! ” said the girl, “ I would willingly close my eyes to 
all the rest of the earth, if only I might open them once on 
Pritchard farm.” 

The whole world, during her childhood, contained for 
Barbara only two objects of greater interest than this 
ancestral estate : — one of these was a boy with a squirrel, 
and the other a girl traveling in England. 

Barbara, in her prattling and chattering years, con- 
stantly discoursed of Philip and Juju. But afterward 
there came a time when, for some strange reason which 
her parents could not fathom, Barbara ceased to speak 


142 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


familiarly of Philip, and then dropped wholly even the 
mention of his name. 

Not so with Lucy’s. In proportion as Barbara was 
silent concerning the one, she was talkative concerning 
the other. Lucy Wilmerding appeared to live on the very 
top of Barbara’s up-bubbling thoughts — like a ball on a 
fountain. 

“Rodney,” said Mrs. Vail, speaking from a mood of 
maternal anxiety, “I am jealous of Lucy Wilmerding. 
She is bewitching Barbara’s mind. You know what an 
inspiration Lucy has been to Barbara. You know that no 
commendation to Barbara could be greater than to tell her 
that she behaved like Lucy, sang like Lucy, or recited like 
Lucy. But Lucy’s career has now become Barbara’s 
despair. Our impetuous child is no longer content to 
emulate Lucy’s studies and manners ; she covets also 
Lucy’s opportunities and privileges. We have taught 
Barbara that she should try to be like Lucy in so many 
respects, that Barbara has at last taught herself to desire 
to be like Lucy in all other things. Alas, how hard it is 
to know the right from the wrong in teaching one’s chil- 
dren ! I supposed I was using Lucy to minister to Bar- 
bara’s comfort, not to her torment.” 

Mrs. Vail did not overstate the difference between the 
earlier and the later influence of Lucy over Barbara, for it 
was all the difference between sunshine and twilight. 

Lucy’s letters consisted of a loquacious bundle of missives 
which she had written from Europe to Mrs. Vail, giving a 
voluminous account of her travels. These letters, which 
Mrs. Vail had saved and brought with her, constituted 
(with a few others of less interest) the only correspondence 
that Barbara had ever seen — except the childish billets- 
doux that she sometimes wrote to her father and mother, 
or oftener to herself. 

Lucy’s rambling pen, like a fairy’s wand, called up before 


THE CAGED BIRD. 


143 


Barbara’s fancy the cities of London, Paris, Florence, 
Rome, Vienna, St. Petersburg — all the European capitals. 
In reading these travels over and over again, Barbara saw 
Lucy sauntering in picture-galleries and contemplating the 
works of the old masters; she saw her visiting stately 
libraries and rich museums ; she saw her in the opera-box 
hanging on the notes of Mario and Grisi ; she saw her in 
the theatre, in tears over Rachel ; she saw her in the gon- 
dolas of Venice, and under the lindens of Berlin ; she saw 
her buying jewels at Geneva, getting dresses fitted in Paris, 
and collecting knick-knacks, perfumes, mosaics, kid -gloves, 
and other womanly delights ; she saw her in brilliant so- 
cial parties, lovely among the loveliest and good among 
the best ; — in a word, she saw her passing through an 
enchanted land and life, holding a talisman by which all 
coveted things, at her mere wish, became her own. 

All this Barbara saw in Lucy. 

Turning from this fascinating mentor and rival, what 
did Barbara see in her own poor, weather-beaten self ? 

Barbara saw in her own person and career a hapless 
young maiden who had been born in a shipwrecked hulk, 
and had drifted all her life on the sea ; she saw an exile 
from the living world ; she saw a castaway to whom not 
the whole green earth had ever yet afforded space enough 
for her bare, sunburnt feet to stand upon ; she saw a waif 
tossing on billows which, as they rolled around her, were 
emblems of the restlessness of her own life; she saw a 
helpless victim to a fate that daily wreaked upon her some 
fresh agony of impatience and hope deferred. 

“ My dear husband,” said Mary, who sat in tears talking 
to Rodney concerning Barbara’s anguish of soul, “what 
shall we do to keep the poor girl from breaking her heart 
— from going mad ?” 

“ Ah,” sighed Rodney, “ I knew it would come sooner 
or later — this conflict of Barbara with her fate. Never- 


144 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


theless, it is for the best. Her restlessness is her discipline. 
She must learn how to suffer and be strong.” 

“I am going to try with Barbara.” said Mary, “a little 
stratagem. Lucy’s brilliant career dazzles Barbara into a 
blindness that makes her own condition seem black and 
desperate. Now in contrast with Lucy, Philip has proba- 
bly had no such gold-paved pathway through life ; he has 
had to fight his way, like most other young men ; he has 
had no career which Barbara need envy ; he possesses 
nothing magnificent for Barbara to covet, as she covets 
everything pertaining to Lucy ; he will not appear to 
Barbara as one of the earth’s sovereigns, with a kingdom 
for an inheritance, and with a circle of glories round him 
to aggravate her soul by contrast with her own lowly estate. 
So we ought to turn Barbara’s thoughts from perpetually 
dwelling on such a career as Lucy’s — a career which our 
daughter, even were she on land, would not have the 
wealth to carry out in her own case. We ought, rather, to 
interest her in the toils, hardships, and struggles that 
ordinarily fall to the lot of mortals — a career such as 
Philip has probably pursued.” 

Mrs. Vail’s proposed plan of dealing with Barbara ex- 
cited the half-satirical smile of Rodney, who simply replied, 

“Ah, what mother ever yet was able to solve the sweet 
and bitter problem of her daughter’s troubled heart ! 
Neither you nor I can understand Barbara’s misery. 
Probably she does not understand it herself. ” 

As Mary and Rodney thus sat talking together in the 
cabin, a sudden shriek pierced their ears. 

“Mercy!” exclaimed Mrs. Vail, “that is Barbara’s 
voice.” 

Another cry arose, in the same wild tone of peril and 
fright, only muffled and distant. 

Rodney rushed up to the deck, the old dog following as 
fast as his age would permit. 


THE CAGED BIRD. 


145 


“ Barbara ! ” shouted Dr. Yail. 

There was no answer, and the girl was nowhere to he seen. 

“ 0 horror ! ” exclaimed Rodney, noticing some rippling 
circles in the water, as if some object had just fallen over- 
board. “ Can Barbara ” 

But before the fearful thought came to full utterance on 
Rodney’s lips, Beaver had leaped into the sea, diving like 
a pelican, and dragging up Barbara by the sleeve of her 
dress. Dr. Vail’s first glimpse of the submerged maiden 
was of her disheveled golden hair, shining like sunlight 
under the waves. 

He seized a rope, tied one end of it round his waist and 
the other to a stanchion, leaped overboard, and, with a 
few lusty strokes, swam to Barbara’s help. 

“ Courage, my child ! ” he cried. “ Do not struggle ! 
Do not clutch my arm ! ” 

Barbara could not utter another cry, nor even gasp for 
breath, for she was well-nigh strangled by her profuse hair, 
which had wound itself in coils about her face and neck. 

“ Cod help me ! ” was her first wild word, half a moan 
and half a shriek. 

“ Throw your right arm over Beaver’s back,” exclaimed 
her father. 

Barbara did so, clutching the dog’s shaggy brown body 
convulsively. 

“ Put your left hand on my shoulder.” 

She obeyed, and was thus buoyed up between her father 
and her dog. 

Barbara could not swim, nor had she ever before been in 
the water. 

Two rope stairways or Jacob’s-ladders, made of ropes 
and barrel-staves, had long before been rigged by Rodney, 
one on each side of the ship, for Beaver’s use and his own, 
in landing their captured game. The swimmers struck 
out toward the larboard ladder. 


146 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Dr. Vail clambered up, got a foot-hold, laid hold of one 
of the higher rounds with his left hand, and, bending 
down, drew Barbara up with his right, until she stepped 
firmly on one of the lower rounds. 

Feeling something solid under her feet, she rested a 
moment, panted, brushed from her eyes her streaming hair 
(which now was equally full of sunshine and rain), saw her 
father above her, gave him a look of unutterable affection, 
and then with his strong help climbed up the slippery 
stairway, while Beaver waited at the foot of it, as if ready 
to catch her in case she should fall. 

“ 0 Barbara, my daughter, my darling ! ” cried Rodney, 
embracing her, and then holding her off at arm’s length, 
gazing at his recovered treasure with the look of a man 
who had just saved, not his life, but something dearer than 
life itself. “Tell me, my child, how you fell into the 
sea.” 

“ My dear father ! ” she exclaimed, after recovering her 
breath, and regaining her presence of mind, “ I was on the 
bowsprit, just trying to threw a little fruit-jar out into the 
water as far as I could, and I lost my balance and slipped 
off.” 

Beaver, whose exploit had shown that in his ashes lived 
his wonted fires, now stepped up sedately to the deck, shak- 
ing himself into a shower of rain ; whereupon Barbara, 
dripping like the water-dog, and looking like some beaute- 
ous mermaid just risen from the sea’s floor, bent down over 
the shaggy old creature, clasped her arms about his 
neck, and kissed his wet ears. 

Mrs. Vail, who had watched through her window the 
whole proceedings, both of peril and of rescue, was so pros- 
trated by the spectacle, that she staggered, was caught by 
Jezebel, and laid on the bed, where Barbara, on going down 
stairs, found her almost in a swoon. 

“My dear, good mother,” said the maiden, after the 


THE CAGED BIRD. 


147 


dripping Nereid had rearrayed her comely limbs in dry 
robes, “ I have been justly punished. Only a little while 
ago I was fretfully wishing to get away from this old ship ; 
but 0 how thankful, thankful, I am to be once again in 
this precious cabin ! — this safe beloved home ! Never shall 
anything tempt me to quit this ship — no, not even to 
step on the dry land. Hereafter, dear mother, I will be 
content to live my life just here on the Coromandel — here 
with you. and father — here with Bel and Beaver. I will 
not sigh for the great world any more — no, never any 
more !” 

Barbara’s sudden experience was a common one to 
human nature. A great peril, safely passed, sheds on all 
commoner hardships a strange light of comfort and peace. 
Barbara’s gratitude in view of what she had just escaped, 
made her willing and eager to welcome whatever she might 
hereafter have to endure. She was nerved not only to 
a passive resignation, but to a proud self-mastery; and 
she felt a heroic desire to accept rather than avoid her 
pitiful fate. 

But the human will is not of adamant ; and in less than 
a month after the accident, Barbara found herself growing 
even more unquiet than before, swaying and heaving with 
longings for liberty. 

“I foolishly persuaded myself,” said she, “that I was 
content with my lot ; but it -is not so ; I am now become 
not only a prisoner, but more — not only a slave, but worse ; 
I am what a moth would be, if forbidden to burst its 
chrysalis — denied that poor worm’s privilege. 0 how I 
long to crack this narrow and mouldy crust ! How I fret 
against this encumbering shell ! Am I unreasonable ? Do 
I ask for more than God gives to others, without their 
asking ? No ; I want liberty. I want life. I want my 
little share of the great world. Above all else, I want 
Lucy. I want— — No ; I must not allow myself to name 


148 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


JT 

that name. 0 just and kind Heaven ! Why was I horn 
into the human race if I am to live forever apart from it, 
and to die having never seen it ? ” 

Barbara, in these agonies, received much pity, but little 
help. Her parents pitied her out of their full hearts, but 
could not help her. Nor could she help herself. 

As for Heaven’s help, — that helps us all, — she had it in 
an overwhelming abundance ; but it was help that she did 
not realize or comprehend ; it was help that she prayed 
against, and shuddered at ; it was help that came in a 
divine disguise which is seldom detected or welcomed 
by mortals — the disguise of disappointment, heart-break, 
and agony; it was help such as the gold gets in the 
crucible, and the heart in the refining fire. 

Barbara, like many another human soul that passes un- 
willingly through the discipline of suffering, was constantly 
receiving Heaven’s best help, yet without knowing it. 

Meanwhile, through days, weeks, months, years, the 
Coromandel — that strange, weird, mouldering ship, blown 
of the wind and tossed of the wave — kept on rocking and 
swinging like a great rusty cage hung between heaven and 
earth, holding within it, in life-long captivity, a golden- 
plumaged bird that fluttered and struggled unceasingly to 
escape, but ever in vain. 


CHAPTER XI. 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY- GLASS. 

A LWAYS a light sleeeper, alert to the least change in 
wind or sea, Rodney Yail was awakened just before 
daybreak. May 27, 1864, by a faint quiver through the 
ship. 

“ What has happened ? ” he exclaimed, and stole 
quietly up to the deck. 

He had been so often roused in the night by some real 
or fancied noise, or plunge of the ship, that he was not 
specially startled by the tremor which he had felt in the 
Coromandel's timbers on this particular morning. 

“ Perhaps I was dreaming,” said he ; “ and yet the 
shock was surely something more than the dashing of a 
wave against the ship’s side. Ho,” he added (looking list- 
lessly about him, and noticing nothing in particular), “it 
must have been one of my many heated fancies, that flame 
up into delusions and cool off into disappointments.” 

But Dr. Vail, on second thought, still believed that the 
Coromandel had come in contact with something more 
than a wave ; and so he looked toward the how to dis- 
cover, by the breeze against his face, whether the ship 
was head to the wind. 

“ Yes,” said the watchful sailor, “ the wind (what little 
there is of it) is square in my teeth.” . 

He walked forward and stood by the bowsprit, to see if 
the water-drag was in its place and doing its duty. 

149 


150 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“What?-” lie cried, perplexed at not seeing the cus- 
tomary mass of spars floating at the bow. “ How could 
it get away ? Did it break loose ? And if gone, what 
keeps the ship head-to ? There is some mystery.” 

Dr. Vail’s curiosity was now excited to the uttermost, 
mingled with alarm. 

For years past, in order to guard the ship from ground- 
ng on some unlooked-for shoal, he had kept one of his 
two large anchors hanging overboard from the bow, allow- 
ing the chain to reach down into the water about thirty 
fathoms, so that at any moment, day or night, the ship 
might anchor herself if the water grew shoaler than that 
safe depth. 

“ How little motion the vessel now feels ! ” said Rod- 
ney, noticing that a strange fixedness and quietude had 
passed into the rolling hulk. 

Peering over the bow, he discovered that the chain- 
cable, which held the anchor, was not running perpendicu- 
larly down as usual, but trending out slantwise. More- 
over, the other chain, which held the water-drag, was trail- 
ing along the ship’s larboard side, and out astern as far as 
its length could reach. The water was rippling past from 
bow to stern, swift as a brook, showing to Rodney’s keen 
glance that the ship, instead of drifting with the current, 
was lying motionless in the midst of it. 

“ My God ! ” he cried, “ the Coromandel has come to 
anchor ! ” 

He sat down a moment, took off his felt hat, wiped 
some sudden beads of cold sweat from his brow, panted 
with a strange excitement, looked up, down, and around, 
and repeated aloud, 

“ Anchored at last ! ” 

Then, to make sure that he was not self-deluded, he 
struck his right hand against his forehead, as if to rouse 
his stupefied brain, and asked himself. 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY-GLASS. 151 

“ Am I sane or mad ? — is this a reality or a dream ? ” 

He re-examined the anchor-chain. Sure enough it was 
sloping off at an angle of forty-fiye degrees — holding the 
ship fast in the midst of a brisk current that danced by 
her at a merry pace. There could be no mistake ; the 
Coromandel was anchored. 

“ Heaven be praised ! ” he cried, with a thrill of ecstacy. 

Dr. Vail’s ship had found a mooring; but where ? He 
knew not, asked not, cared not ; for at that moment, all 
he knew, asked, or cared was whether she was actually an- 
chored ; that was enough ! 

To Rodney Vail, the mere thought was a fever and 
flushed his face with fire. It was an ecstasy of sane mad- 
ness. It was like the supreme joy of Leverrier at discov- 
ing Neptune. It was a sense, not only of the lost bottom 
of the ocean found at last, but of a new basis and corner- 
stone put under the universe itself. 

“ Almighty Father, glory be to thy name ! ” cried Rod- 
ney Vail, who stood with uncovered brow, upturned face, 
and uplifted hands, as if bearing up his soul’s gratitude 
to heaven and holding it on high till sure of its accept- 
ance above. 

The rest of the ship’s company still slept. 

“ What a day they will awake to ! ” he thought. 

Then his busy brain filled itself with problems. Where 
was he ? He could not guess. What had been yester- 
day’s latitude and longitude ? He remembered the fig- 
ures — 12° 18' N. ; 61° 28' W. What part of the world 
was this ? He had no map, and could not tell. 

“I suspect,” said he, “that the ship is somewhere 
north of South America, or somewhere east of the West 
Indies. How deep is the water ? It must be less than 
thirty fathoms, for the anchor has found bottom, and the 
chain is aslant. The ship, therefore, is not far from shore. 
But I hear no surf. 0, for the dawn of day ! ” 


152 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Dr. Vail saw that nothing short of daylight could solve 
the misty problem of his strange situation. 

“ What wee, tiny, noisy birds ! ” he exclaimed, noticing 
a flock of snipe fluttering about him and chattering with 
small voices : — a tribe of chirruping visitors which in- 
dicated (he thought) that the land must be near, for they 
were too multitudinous and feeble to be of the mid- 
ocean’s stately brood of tireless wings. 

Bodney Vail, looking westward through his spy-glass, 
saw the idol of his soul’s quest, and exclaimed, 

“ Land ho ! ” 

He saw it with open eyes, not dreaming, but awake. 

“ Land, land, land ! ” he cried. 

It was a strip of actual, veritable, solid earth ; perhaps 
an island, perhaps a cape, perhaps a continent ; — he could 
not tell which — but it was land. The beams of the dawn 
lighted it into unmistakable reality — and it was land. The 
discoverer’s feet had not stepped upon it to prove its real- 
ity — but it was land. This self-same sailor had been 
cheated before by mirage, but could not be deceived in 
what he now beheld — for it was land. 

“ What will Mary say to this ? ” he cried. “ And Bar- 
bara ? And Jezebel ? And Beaver ? ” 

Descending to the cabin, he woke his wife, and, without 
reporting his discovery, said, 

“ Mary, it will be the most beautiful sunrise that ever 
dawned. Come and see it. Waken Barbara. Call Jeze- 
bel. Come up quickly and join me on deck.” After 
giving this message, he went to Beaver’s quarters, and pat- 
ting the patriarch affectionately, exclaimed in a gentle tone, 
“ Beaver, you old water-dog, would you like to set your 
feet on dry-land before you die ? Come, old cripple, hob- 
ble up stairs ! Would you know a dog if you should see 
one ? It is a dog’s lifetime, my dear old fellow, since you 
last met and growled at one of your own race. You are 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY-GLASS. 


153 


now about to meet multitudes of curs of high and low de- 
gree. Do you think you will be able to nose out among 
them the companions of your youth, now grown gray like 
yourself ? Ah, Beaver, my brave old dog, it will be 
pleasant, not onty for me but for you, to see the world 
again ; yet we have both been absent from it so long that 
we dare not guess what friends have dropped out of it, or 
how greatly it will seem changed.” 

Rodney Vail stood in the companion-way facing the east, 
and as his wife and Barbara came up, followed by slow and 
chattering J ezebel, he pointed to the day-break, saying, 

“ I have called you all to view this sunrise because you 
may never see its equal in any climate.” 

They all gazed. 

“How beautiful!” exclaimed Mary, softly. “It re- 
minds me of the mornings that used to break over the sea 
at Salem. 0 how many days have come and gone since 
we saw that dear coast ! ” 

“ Yes,” replied Rodney ; “but we shall see it again.” 

Mary heaved a deep sigh and gazed in silence, struggling 
against her doubts and hiding her despair. 

“Father,” said Barbara, who stood looking at the 
flushed beauty of the sky— “you know the sunrise is al- 
ways beautiful : it is crimson to-day ; but we have seen it 
just as flame-colored on a thousand other mornings.” 

“ True,” answered Rodney, “ we have seen these same 
burnished colors in the east, but did you ever see any- 
thing like yonder strange streaks in the west ! ” 

The little company all turned and looked at the opposite 
quarter of the sky. 

“What is that ?” inquired Barbara. 

Mrs. Vail, who solved the riddle at a glance, sat with 
tearful eyes and could not speak a word. 

“Do not tell me,” said Barbara. “Let me guess. Is 
it a ship ? But it has no sails. Is it a bank of floating- 


154 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


weed? No, it is too white. I cannot guess it — tell me 
what it is ; I have never seen anything like it.” 

“ My daughter,” replied her father, stepping up to her, 
and kissing her forehead, “it is the land.” 

If then a white lily had suddenly taken root in the ship’s 
deck, shooting up a magical stalk and bursting into imme- 
diate bloom by the side of Barbara, the flower would not 
have looked so pure and pale as that maiden’s face for one 
astonished moment. 

“ God is good ! ” she said softly, clasping her hands and 
lifting her clear eyes without tears toward heaven. 

Rodney, whose first solemnity of mind at his great dis- 
covery had come and gone before the rest of the family had 
joined him on deck, was now almost beside himself with 
frolic. So much electricity shot through his blood that 
his fingers tingled to their tips. He waved his hands in 
salutation to the friendly shore ; he caught up Beaver by 
the forepaws, and trotted that rheumatic patriarch round 
on his hind feet ; he burst forth into singing a German 
student’s song ; he played the madcap with Barbara, 
swinging her arms in a game of love-ribbon ; and at last 
he sat down on the deck by Mary’s chair, took her hand in 
his, and kissed it. 

Beaver evidently regarded the distant object as some 
great squatting duck or petrel, which the captain was 
about to shoot, and which the dog was preposterously 
expected to nip hold of and lug back to the ship. 

Jezebel stood looking at the gleaming white line of sea- 
beach ; her hands ignorantly lifted to shade her eyes from 
the sun, though the sun was behind her — and after gaz- 
ing long and lovingly, burst out into an incredulous 
laugh. 

“ He lan’ ?” she inquired, with an air as if she could not 
be fooled by a false report (for she had so long accustomed 
herself to beholding the land with her inner sight, that she 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY-GLASS. 


155 


had forgotten how it appeared to the natural eye). “ No ! 
dat’s not de lan’ ! Whar’s de white meetin’-house ? — whar’s 
de buryin’-groun’ an’ de grave-stones ? — whar’s de peak-roof 
on de ole Pritchard place, wid de big chimneys standin’ up 
among de trees ? De lan’ ? Lawks amassy, no ! ” 

“ Yes, Jezebel,” said Eodney, “that is the land.” 

“What, dat little shinin’ streak out dar ?” she inquired, 
changing her disdain into curiosity. “ Is dat de lan’ ? — de 
same ole lan’ what it used to be ? — de place whar de birds 
sing ? — whar de little chillen’ go to school ? — and whar de 
cows come home ? Is dat ole Salem ? ” 

Then, with a strange rapture in her eyes and a wild 
energy in her tone, she exclaimed, as if swift conviction 
were working within her, “ What’s de good hook say ? 
‘ Jesus sat by de sea-sideJ Wonder if He’s sittin’ dar yet ! 
Lord, here am I. Behold, I come quickly. Glory, Halle- 
lujah ! ” 

In uttering these words, her large frame trembled, and 
she involuntarily reached forth her right hand as if expect- 
ing her Lord to clasp it. 

Barbara, who was the most deeply affected of all the 
party, was the most mute. She hardly spoke a word ; nor, 
after the first few moments, could she even see the great 
spectacle distinctly for the mist in her eyes. Gold and 
purple lights, such as one beholds in iridescent dreams, 
dazzled her blurred sight. The sea was calm, but her 
heart was in a tumult. The breeze was gentle, but 
noises as of roaring gales rushed past her ears, making a 
tempest in her soul. Barbara, like Columbus, had just 
discovered a new world ; and like Atlas, she was bearing 
the whole weight of it at once. It was a supreme moment 
with the sweet maiden, ending her girlhood forever, and 
making a woman of her on the spot. 

“ Ifc must be ten miles off,” said Eodney. 

“ How shall we get to it ? ” asked Mary. 


156 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


But to Barbara it was not ten miles off ; nor one mile ; 
nor did she seek to get to the shore — for she was already 
there. She had in swift fancy glided in a moment oyer 
the waters to an enchanted city. She was landing amid its 
commerce-laden piers. She was treading its streets. She 
was gazing at its church-spires. She was glancing at its 
bazaars and shop-windows. She was saluting the busy 
throngs of men, women, and children who came out to 
take her by the hand. She was asking them where she 
could find Lucy Wilmerding and— no, only Lucy ; she 
checked herself from naming any other name. 

In short, Barbara stood in a half trance surveying the 
great panorama of the world, and shaping it in her fancy 
exactly as she expected to find it in reality. 

Rodney Vail’s first idea was that a steamer would soon 
be coming to meet him, and that amid the scream of steam- 
whistles, the flying of flags, and the cheers of rescuers, he 
and his little band would be borne with boisterous welcome 
into port. He thought he saw the smoke of such a vessel. 

For an hour, he had no other plan of landing than to 
wait for his convoy, and be taken ashore with music and 
festivities. 

“ No convoy comes,” said Barbara. “Why wait for it 
longer ? Let us go right up to the land ourselves ! ” 

But now came a threatening accident : the chain-cable 
parted. 

Long contact with the salt water had gnawed like can- 
ker into some of the links, and the great strain of the 
vessel, while swaying in the strong current, had snapped 
the rusty iron asunder. 

“ The ship,” cried Rodney, “is once again adrift.” 

“Father,” exclaimed Barbara, “this is delightful! — 
We shall soon be there ! — See how fast we go ! ” 

“My child,” replied the anxious man, “ there is danger 
of breakers — danger of rocks — danger of stranding — dan- 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY-GLASS. 157 

ger of swamping — danger of death from the very land to 
which we have been looking forward for newness of life ! ” 

“ What are the dangers ? ” asked Barbara. “ I see none. 
I see only the beautiful land, and we are rushing right 
straight to it ! ” 

“Barbara,” cried Rodney, “run — haste — bring me the 
lead-line.” 

Dr. Vail hoye the lead and found the water suddenly 
shoaling. 

“ I must get the other anchor ready,” he cried, “ or we 
shall run aground.” 

Leaping to the starboard cathead, he cut loose the fasten- 
ings which kept his spare anchor in its place, lowered it 
slowly into the water about fiye fathoms, held it fast at 
that length, and allowed the Coromandel to drift toward 
the shore. 

“Barbara,” he exclaimed, “watch the lead-line as I 
heave it — call out the fathoms.” 

Whereupon he hove the lead again and again, and his 
daughter reported the depth shoaling up from nineteen 
fathoms to twelve, and from twelve to seven. 

“ 0 look at those wonderful white waves ! ” cried Bar- 
bara, pointing toward the shore. “See how they roll 
and break ! Hear how they sing ! ” 

There was first a rough and boisterous line of breakers, 
full of threat and menace, whitening all the low beach, 
and roaring like enraged lions ready to tear the ship to 
pieces. Just beyond these bellowing billows was a long 
and slender arm of sand or tapering shoal, stretching 
out half a mile or more in length, but hardly rising to 
a man’s height above the sea-level. Beyond this break- 
water was a smooth inlet, hardly rutiled by a breath. 

“Yonder tranquil cove,” cried Rodney, “will be a 
harbor of safety, if the ship can shoot into and anchor 
there ! ” 


158 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


The Coromandel rapidly drifted shoreward, head to the 
wind as usual ; for when she broke from her anchorage, 
the water-drag voluntarily changed its place from the stern 
to the bow. 

The general current was from east to west, hut when it 
reached the southern point of the bar, it turned abruptly 
northward and followed the land up into the cove. 

Kodney Yail shortened the chain from five fathoms to 
three. 

“ If I anchor close in shore, just off this point,” said 
he, “ the ship must swing round into the smooth water 
beyond.” 

His approach was as gentle as the current itself, and as 
swift. He soon found himself rounding the southern 
point, within pistol-shot of the shore — then bending 
northward through the sheet of sheltered, unruffled, yet 
fast-flowing water — and then approaching another point 
which shelved out before him about half a mile distant. 
It was between these two points that Nature had indented 
the cove which he had already discovered from a distance, 
making a tranquil refuge against the neighboring sea. 

Kodney now stood at the anchor, and Barbara made the 
soundings. 

“How many fathoms ?” he asked. 

“ Four and a half,” she replied. 

“ How many now ?” 

“Four.” 

“ And now ? ” 

“Three and a half.” 

Hauling up the anchor a few feet further, Rodney re- 
solved to drift still nearer in, before he chose his moorings. 

At this moment the water began to deepen. 

“Four fathoms,” shouted Barbara. 

“ Try again,” said her father.' 

“ Five.” 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY-GLASS. 


159 


“ Quick, again ! ” 

“Four.” 

“ And now ?” 

“ Three fathoms ! ” 

“ Any change ? ” 

“ Two and a half ! ” 

J ust then the anchor touched bottom — the ship made a 
slow half-circle round the almost perpendicular chain, like 
a door on its hinge — the water-drag sagged sternward — 
and the long voyage came to an end ! 

As Admiral Drake, after circumnavigating the globe, 
knelt with pride to receive knighthood from Queen Eliza- 
beth, so Rodney Yail walked to the companion-way where 
Mary sat in her chair, took off his hat, knelt at her feet, 
and received her white hand on his head. 

“0 Rodney!” she exclaimed, “we shall once more 
tread our native land. What a day this is ! And to think 
that we have all lived to see it ! ” 

Mary’s pale face grew bright with emotion. 

“ Yes,” said Jezebel, who looked on with undisturbed 
quietude, “ de Lord is better to us dan to de prophets 
and kings, for dey desired to see but died widout de 
sight.” 

Barbara, without speaking, was as restless as a mouse 
waiting to be let out of a trap. 

“ Now for sober second thought,” said Rodney, who 
leaned over the ship’s rail with glass in hand, to think out 
a scheme for getting ashore. 

“The people,” said Barbara, “can easily come to us 
here. Let us be ready to meet them. But, 0 mother, we 
look like frights.” 

The fastidious maiden then proposed that they should 
dress themselves with suitable magnificence to meet their 
expected guests. 

“ Law, chile,” said Jezebel, with whom great things 


160 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


never displaced small, “let us hat) de breakfast all ober 
fust, before de company comes.” 

Rodney Vail’s observations convinced him that he had 
reached a small island either lying somewhere in a general 
ocean current, or else swept at that time by a strong flood- 
tide. “ Or,” said he, “ both these surmises may be true. 
It may be that the perpetual current is just now accelerated 
by the periodic tide. At all events, I notice that while 
the general sea-drift has been from east to west, yet here 
is a strong stream, like a tide-way, flowing northeast up 
into the cove. If our ship were not anchored, she would 
go ashore yonder among those green trees.” And he 
pointed to a shady grove by the water’s brink. 

“ Well, let us go there at once ! ” said the eager girl. 

Rodney reflected that if this stream were a flood-tide, 
subject to an ebb, he would by and by be swayed back 
again beyond the sandy point. So he immediately paid 
out the entire length of his cable and drifted up the cove 
so near to its western shore that^ he could have tossed 
a sea-biscuit to a jutting rock, overhung by cocoa-nut- 
trees. 

He then hauled the water-drag to the side of the ship, 
took off his coat and shoes, coiled a small rope on deck so 
that it would easily run off, tied one end of it to a hawser 
and the other around his waist, got down upon the water- 
drag, drifted with it as on a raft up the cove into the shal- 
low water, and stepped ashore. 

Beaver accompanied his master. 

Once on the land, which was a new and thrilling sensa- 
tion for the feet both of dog and man, the man patted the 
dog in congratulation, and received from that shaking 
piece of dripping shagginess a shower of sparkling drops. 

Rodney Vail then pulled toward him the small rope 
attached to the hawser, hauled the hawser ashore, and 
fastened it round the foot of a tree. 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY-GLASS. 


161 


Moored thus at bow and stern, the ship would be safe 
and snug for either tide. ,, 

This done, the mariner drew a long breath, swept one 
eager glance about the shore, scooped up a double handful 
of the pebbly sand, gazed at it as a gold-miner gazes at a 
rich quartz, kissed it, and exclaimed, 

“ And so this is Mother Earth ! I love her — I bless her 
— I caress her. How my little family yearn to step on her 
sands, her rocks, her turf. They shall have this happi- 
ness at once.” 

Then, hurrying along the beach towards the cove’s 
mouth, Dr. Yail leaped into the water and swam with the 
tide to the ship. 

Once again on the deck, and dripping like the dog, he 
exclaimed, 

“ This is the greatest day in the history of the world. 
Barbara, beautify it with colors ! Bring out all our flags ! 
Set every ribbon spangling in the sun ! ” 

Barbara hoisted an old well-worn American flag, but not 
quite to the top of the staff. 

“ Higher ! ” exclaimed Rodney. “ That is half-mast. 
Ho mourning to-day ! Ho signal of distress in this proud 
hour ! ” 

The ship was straightway clad in Joseph’s coat of many 
colors. 

“ What shall we do next ? ” asked Mary. 

“ Why, next,” said Rodney, excitedly, “ let us eat J ezebel’s 
breakfast. Is it ready ? I have the appetite of a Carib.” 

Descending into the cabin, he brought up one of the 
few remaining bottles of Mr. Jansen’s sherry (which had 
greatly improved with years and travel), and, filling his 
glass, proposed as a toast suitable to the great occasion, 
“ Our God, our country, and ourselves,” which for the 
comprehensiveness of the sentiment, and the excellence of 
the wine, could hardly be surpassed. 


162 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Why don’t the people come to meet us ? ” asked Barbara. 

“ It is too early in the day,” replied her father. “ Peo- 
ple in civilized countries sleep long o’ mornings. They 
were probably up late last night at their balls and mas- 
querades. It is only the virtuous and unfortunate, like 
ourselves, who rise early.” 

After breakfast, Dr. Vail rigged a basket to roll along 
the hawser, forming a car such as he had seen used for 
ferries across mountain-gorges in Europe. 

At 10 a.m. Mary and Barbara were ferried to the land ; 
but Jezebel (a sort of Ealstaff, only wiser) could not be 
tempted into the basket. 

“No,” said she, “dis ole woman is too fat. What if de 
rope break ? Ole Bel don’t want to be steeped into de 
floods any more. Enough ob de Lord’s deep waters hab 
rolled ober her already.” 

Then on second thought she added, 

“ If you see my boy Pete, tell him I is waitin’ here for 
him to come.” 

The landscape was not remarkable in itself, but had a 
strange novelty to the eyes that then surveyed it ; for of 
the three persons who stood on it as spectators, two were 
beholding the solid earth for the first time in seventeen 
years, and the other for the first time in her life. 

“ This place,” said Barbara, looking round at the scene, 
awe-struck by it, “ is Wonder Land itself.” 

They began to walk about, and Barbara, though never 
awkward before, was now unexpectedly at a loss to know 
what to do with her feet — there was such strange footing 
under them ! 

“0 ! I can’t walk over these rough stones,” said she. 

Her father and mother could not help smiling at her 
timid and comical tread, stepping as if she feared at every 
moment to sink through the surface, just as she would 
have done in the water. 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY-GLASS. 


163 


Even Venus, who like Barbara was bom amid the sea, 
and who like Barbara was wafted to the land, was proba- 
bly also like Barbara a little surprised and bewildered at put- 
ting her heavenly feet for the first time on earthly ground. 

Mrs. Vail took Barbara by the hand, and led her a little 
way into some luxuriant grass, through which the maiden 
waded like a penguin in a marsh, or a pelican among the 
reeds. 

“ You may remain here and rest,” said Rodney to Mary 
and Barbara, “ and I will go forward and explore our new 
kingdom.” 

Dr. Vail turned away, leaving his wife and daughter 
sitting under a shady tree. 

“ 0,” cried Barbara, “ it is all so strange ! It is so un- 
like what I expected ! Mother, are you sure that this is 
reality ? Is that the Coromandel ? ” 

Barbara was quite as much astonished at the appearance 
of the ship as of the land, for she had never before seen 
the Coromandel from the outside, not even on the day 
when she fell overboard, for then her terror at the accident, 
and her blindness caused by her hair falling over her eyes, 
had prevented her from seeing the ship. 

“I never suspected,” said Barbara, “ that the Coroman- 
del was so narrow, long, and low ; for she always seemed 
so high, wide, and deep.” 

A stinging sensation now crept into Barbara's feet, for 
her shoes had filled with sand, and the little sharp grains 
audaciously pricked her tender flesh. Noisy, tropical in- 
sects hummed about her, and their sounds seemed like 
the same sand-grains entering her ears. Little brown snipe 
flitted here and here— the same cheery creatures that her 
father had seen in the morning. Moss-clad rocks lay 
round her, as if Nature had first tumbled them down in 
great profusion, and then to heal their cuts and gashes had 
mantled them in green. 


164 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“This scene,” said Barbara, “makes me think of 
Arcadia — of Arden — of Elysium. Mother, you remember 
how Shakespeare speaks of tongues in trees ? Hark, these 
trees are whispering over our heads. I wonder what they 
are saying ? ” 

“ I am more curious,” said her mother, “ to know what 
is the language of this country — whether the people 
speak English, French, Spanish, or what.” 

Dr. Yail had meanwhile discovered a hill, sloping down 
on one side to the east, and on the other to the west. 
After a few minutes’ walk, he reached the top and found 
himself at a commanding point of prospect. One glance 
from the summit showed him that the island was of very 
small compass. Its whole coast-linc could not have been 
more than two miles in one direction and a mile in another. 
It was shaped like a horse-shoe, and the Coromandel lay 
in the bend. It had no other ship nor harbor. There was 
no city, no town, no village, no house, no hut, no sign of 
human beings save the new-comers themselves. Some 
other fragments of land, few and small, lay scattered in 
the watery distance and appeared even more diminutive 
than the isle on which he stood. He said to himself with 
a grim sense of isolation, 

“This is Alexander Selkirk’s lone spQt.” 

A flock of white-breasted sea-gulls flew past. 

“ 0 you social companions,” he cried, addressing them, 
“ I am acquainted with you all ! Your brethren and I 
have met on the great deep ! You are gathered to your 
tribes. When shall I mingle with my fellow-men ? ” 

Returning to his wife and daughter, he was eagerly 
saluted by both. 

“ Father,” cried Barbara, “have you met the inhabi- 
tants ? What language do they speak? What shall we 
say to them ? How do they look ? What country is this ? 
Why don’t you answer my questions ? ” 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY-GLASS. 165 

l( My child,” replied her father, deliberately, “ I have 
met the inhabitants. They are of our own race ; they all 
speak English ; they are by nature white-skinned and fair, 
but at present are badly sunburnt. In short, they are our- 
selves.” 

“ What ! ” exclaimed the girl. “ And is this great coun- 
try without inhabitants ? Where, then, is Lucy Wilmer- 
ding ? And where is •” but she checked herself. 

Her father supposed that she was alluding to his friend 
Oliver Chantilly. 

“1 have always believed,” said Rodney, “that Oliver 
was on the ocean searching for the Coromandel. If so, 
then perhaps we are farther from him now than when we 
were in Capricorn.” 

Looking toward the sky. Dr. Yail noticed that it threat- 
ened a shower. 

“Come with me to the top of yonder hill,” said he, 
“ before the clouds shut out the prospect.” 

The view was beautiful, and would have been impressive 
to any eyes, for it included all the sky and half the sea, 
yet the stretch of land was diminutive. But it was huge 
to Barbara. Having never seen any land before, except 
the few square inches of soil within the rim of her geranium- 
pot, she thought the pigmy isle a continent. It realized 
her conception of size. It seemed, in some strange way, 
to be wider than the horizon that bounded it. Then, too, 
she was higher in the air than ever before, and this was an 
exhilaration. She saw the ship lying dwarfed at her feet, 
and this was a curiosity. She saw three other islands at a 
distance, and these renewed in her the sensations which she 
had felt when she first descried, in the morning, the land 
on which she now stood. She saw, too, and gathered with 
her own hands, the plantain, the pine-apple, and the orange 
— all growing wild — and this was an intoxication. 

“ After all,” exclaimed Barbara, with beaming eyes. 


166 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“although I miss the human race and the cities which 
they have built, yet everything else is here. The land is 
clothed with bewitching beauty. The earth’s green is 
lovelier than the sky’s blue.” 

The clouds with stately speed rushed together toward the 
zenith, and shed a few great drops which, as they fell 
through the sunshine, were painted with a rainbow. This 
was one of the long-familiar sights to the ocean wanderers, 
and made them feel as if at home again on the deep. 

“ Mary,” said Dr. Vail, “ let us seek a covert in yonder 
grove.” 

The travelers, in starting down the hill toward a cluster 
of trees, neglected to notice that they were going toward 
the west, not toward the east ; in other words, that they 
were getting farther and farther from the ship. 

Hardly had they sheltered themselves under the leafy roof 
than the torrent beat upon it over their heads like arrows 
against an embossed shield. 

“ How thick this shade is, and how dark ! ” said Bar- 
bara. 

They walked about in it as in a twilight at mid-day. 

“ What is that ? ” suddenly exclaimed the keen-eyed 
maiden, pointing to a low wooden structure that stood amid 
the trees, and was overrun with vines. 

The travelers gazed at it with great curiosity. 

“It is a house,” said Rodney, “a human habitation; 
but it looks as ancient as Time itself.” 

Approaching nearer, Dr. Vail descried through the mant- 
ling foliage, which enveloped the building, two closed 
windows and a closed door between them, all partly hidden 
by the overgrowth of vines. Then a peaked and moss- 
grown roof became partly visible. At last, as Dr. Vail 
stepped in front of the structure, a figure of a cross, carved 
in dark wood, and clad with lichens, revealed itself over 
the door. 


A GLIMPSE THROUGH A SPY-GLASS. 167 

“ This is a Catholic country,” said Mary, “and we shall 
find Christian hospitality. ” 

Inspired by a sudden hope of human welcome, the pil- 
grims drew near the house, mounted a great stone which 
served as a door-step, and knocked at the door. 

“0 Mary,” exclaimed Rodney, in a low voice, “how 
many years have passed since you and I have stood at the 
door of anybody’s house ! ” 

They all breathlessly awaited a reponse from within, but 
the only sound was of the increasing wind that roared over 
their heads, creaking in the branches. 

“ I think that this strange building,” whispered Mary, 
looking up at the antique cross, “must be a Hermit’s 
Chapel.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


GOLGOTHA. 


HE visitors at the Hermit’s Chapel found neither a 



A chapel nor a hermit; yet Mrs. Vail’s guess, though 
not right, was not wrong ; for the building had at one time 
been a chapel, and at another a hermitage. 

“ As we are in the West Indies,” said Dr. Vail, “perhaps 
this ancient structure is a memorial of the early Spanish or 
Erench adventurers ; wherever they foraged they carried 
the cross — they were robbers and churchmen.” 

Dr. Vail and his companions had landed among the Carib- 
bee Islands, on one of the hundred or more specks in the 
sea which are called the Grenadines, borrowing their dimin- 
utive name from their proximity to the Isle of Grenada. 
The whole hundred, stretching out like beads on a string, 
make a rosary sixty miles long. The largest of the group 
is not larger than a nobleman’s country-seat. The few 
that have names look on the map like grains of sand ; the 
rest dwindle into anonymous insignificance, or hide them- 
selves altogether from the navigator’s chart. 

It was on one of these broken bits of mother earth — un- 
named, uncharted, and unknown — that the Coromandel 
was cast. 

The history of this fragment of sea-girdled rock has been 
blotted into oblivion, but can be rewritten in a passing 
word. The early European explorers of the Spanish Main 
found the tall, brave Caribs practising a strange and cun- 


168 


GOLGOTHA. 


169 


ning art — the curing of meat by red-drying without salt. 
Thus cured, the flesh of the wild swine, with which the 
islands abounded, possessed a market value as a novel article 
of commerce. The cured meat was called by the Caribs 
“ boucan ; ” from which the meat-curers became known in 
French as “ boucaniers,” and in English as “buccaneers.” 
These early meat-packers were not marauders ; their “ buc- 
caneering ” was an honest business. The term “ buccaneer- 
ing ” now used as a synonym for “piracy,” did not acquire 
this thievish significance until many years later ; that is, 
not till after the early race of swine had been exterminated, 
leaving the meat-packers no more meat to pack, and tempt- 
ing them to earn a livelihood by pillaging ships. 

The early buccaneers — in other words, the meat-mar- 
keters, not the ship-plunderers — were a secret order, oath- 
bound. In those days the Spaniards, claiming all the West 
Indies by right of discovery, tried to keep off all other 
foreigners from the Spanish islands, settlements and 
trading-posts. This exclusion of the French, English, and 
Danish adventurers from Spanish ground led them to cast 
their lot among the boar-hunters of the wilder islands. 
They thus became buccaneers. When they increased in 
number, so as to be important enough to be persecuted by 
the Spanish power, they organized themselves into a league 
of defence, called the Brethren of the Coast, an order 
something like the Free Masons or Odd Fellows, only in 
a rude and crude form, and having often a bloody purpose. 

This league had its English headquarters in Tortugas, 
and its French at St. Kitt’s. Its laws were unwritten, but not 
unexecuted. Its members had all things in common ; its 
villages and communities were without locks and bolts on 
any doors. One of its distinguishing features was a close 
partnership between two comrades, by which each man had 
a mate to whom he made oath of fidelity — each binding 
himself to help the other at all risks— each dividing with 


170 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


the other his last crust (and particularly his first and 
every bottle) — the living partner to bury the dead with 
Christian rites — and the survivor to inherit in fee-simple 
the joint property of both. 

The little island to which the Coromandel had come had 
been in former days a bivouac of the Brethren of the 
Coast. 

The sudden rain that drove .Rodney Vail’s party to the 
Hermit’s Chapel, continued to fall as the weather-bound 
pilgrims stood waiting at the door ; but the over-hanging 
trees, interlaced with vines, made a green roof over their 
heads, and protected them from the descending floods. 

“ These trees,” said Rodney, “ are lignum vitae, and may 
be centuries old.” 

“Yonder cross, then,” suggested Mary, “the holy 
image of the tree of life, is fitly carved in wood of that 
name.” 

Rodney noticed that the threshold of the rude and 
antique building was worm-eaten and rotten, and yet the 
iron-like, wood of the consecrated symbol was without any 
vestige of decay, save the lichens and moss that grew under 
its outstretched arms, where the pausing rain-drops now 
hung like beads. 

“ Mother, why does not some one answer our knock ? ” 
asked Barbara in a whisper, feeling a sensation of mingled 
curiosity, impatience, and dread. 

“ My daughter,” replied her mother in a low voice, “ per- 
haps the hermit is at his prayers.” 

The suggestion of a kneeling worshiper at his devotions 
was awe-inspiring to Mrs. Vail, and she pictured an aged 
patriarch thus bowed within the hut. 

Rodney, who indulged in no such imaginings, was 
rapidly making up his mind that the house was without a 
tenant, and the isle without an inhabitant. 

Walking back from the door-step to survey the structure 


GOLGOTHA. 


171 


all round, lie noticed that it was a small, oblong house, 
with a peaked roof, two windows and a door in front, two 
windows in the rear, and nothing on the sides except » 
clustering iyies and other vines that hid the walls from view. 

“ It is deserted,” said Rodney ; “ probably no one has 
been near it for years ; there is no beaten path to the door ; 
the windows are barricaded with shutters ; the vines are as 
wild as those of a wilderness. Let me try the lock.” 

But on stepping forward to the door, he found no lock, 
— nothing but a mouldy remnant of what had been a large 
wooden knob, which, as he grasped it, broke off in his 
hand. 

This accident startled him, for any token of extreme 
decay about a human habitation associates itself impres- 
sively with man’s own mortality. 

“ Perhaps,” said Dr. Vail, “the door is locked on the 
inside.” 

But on examination he found no trace of a key-hole. 

“Then,” said he, “the door is not locked at all.” 

“Do not open it ! ” exclaimed Mary, who felt an inde- 
finable dread. 

“Father,” said Barbara, “do not go in, for the cross 
shows that this structure is a tomb, a sepulchre.” 

“ My child,” replied her father, “tombs and sepulchres 
are not built of wood, like living men’s houses ; this is not 
a sepulchre — it is a dwelling-house.” 

Saying which, he pressed both hands against the door, 
and pushing it with all his might, burst it from its fasten- 
ings, and it fell inward, flat on the ground, with no little 
noise and scattering of dust. 

Suddenly out through the open space ran a terrified 
lizard, followed helter-skelter by a few musty mice, and by 
a panic-stricken army of centipedes, black beetles, and 
innumerable insects creeping and crawling in every direc- 
tion. 


172 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


This loathsome spectacle startled the two women, par- 
ticularly Mrs. Yail. 

“ 0 horror ! ” she exclaimed, “ it is a house of corruption.” 

“ Stand here on the doorstep,” said Rodney, “ and let 
me enter alone.” 

Dr. Yail stepped across the damp and rotten threshold, 
and saw a sight that shook his nerves. 

“In Heaven’s name, what are these?” he whispered, 
not speaking aloud for fear of alarming his companions. 

Before him lay a row of human skulls. 

They were placed in careful order, each on a separate 
pedestal of lignum vitae, about half a yard apart, eleven in 
number, making altogether a ghastly line reaching across 
the charnel-house. 

There were no skeletons or bones ; nothing but these 
heads ; bare and bleached ; quietly awaiting the Day of 
Judgment. 

Dr. Yail shrank from the ghastly spectacle, and stag- 
gered back into the daylight. 

“ What did you see ? ” asked Mary, who noticed a strange 
pallor on his face. 

“Let me look again,” said he; whereupon, without 
making further answer, he re-entered this Golgotha. 

Gazing now more composedly than before, he contem- 
plated the scene with deep emotion. 

“Never,” thought he, “never did I dream that after 
my long* absentee from my fellow-men, my first returning 
glimpse of them would be of their unburied skulls. 0 
my brethren, I come to you, and you receive me not ! I 
salute you, and you greet me not ! Ah, dumb tongues 
that cannot tell your own tale, were you too a ship’s com- 
pany of wanderers cast away on this desolate shore ? Who- 
ever you are, forgive the intrusion of a stranger, and let 
me loiter a moment among you as among long-lost, new- 
found friends.” 


GOLGOTHA. 


173 


Dr. Yail noticed that each skull bore a faded and dim 
inscription on its forehead in Spanish, the first that he 
deciphered running as follows : 

“ Soy Carlos Barrado— 
un Ave Maria y un Padre 
Neustro por Dios, hermano.” 

After he had slowly picked out the almost obliterated 
words, he turned them into English, repeating in a low 
voice, as if giving the dead a muffled tongue : 

“ I am Carlos Barrado; for God's sake, brother, an 
Ave Maria and a Paternoster.” 

Glancing in quick succession at all the skulls, he ob- 
served that each had a different name, but otherwise the 
same inscription. 

Looking round the strange place, he saw no altar, no 
churchly furniture, no object of any kind, sacred or com- 
mon ; nothing save these death's-heads. 

“Kodney, my dear husband, why do you stay so 
long ? ” cried his wife, from the outside. “ Come back ! 99 

“ Father, what have you seen ?” ask£d Barbara, as he 
obeyed her mother’s summons. 

“ I have seen,” he replied, “ what I have not looked 
upon before for nearly twenty years — Death.” 

Barbara gave a start — almost a leap ; for of all her ex- 
pectations of novel sights on the land, death was not one ; 
the solemn end of life had no place in her new beginning 
of it. 

“ Who is dead ? ” she exclaimed. “ Is it Lucy Wil- 
merding ? Or is it ?" 

Barbara was on the point of mentioning another name, 
but checked herself, and simply added, 

“ No, it cannot be !” 

On second thought, she impulsively rushed into the 


174 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


charnel-house as if to rescue Lucy or a still more precious 
and imperiled victim from a mortal fate. 

Mrs. Yail followed her ; and father, mother and daugh- 
ter together surveyed the skulls. 

“ My child,” said her father, “you were right in guess- 
ing that this is a burial-place. I never saw one like it. 
Had I known what was inside this house before breaking 
open the door, I would never have lifted my hand to dis- 
turb these sleepers. Let us retire from this tomb. It 
belongs to other tenants than ourselves. Quite soon 
enough we shall each have a sepulchre of our own, from 
which our feet can never depart.” 

Emerging from the antique house of the dead, the trav- 
elers welcomed the open air again, even though it was 
laden with a rainy mist. 

In the Caribbee Islands, showers at noon are common 
toward the end of May, coming quickly and clearing in an 
hour or two. During a week or fortnight the rain comes 
and goes spasmodically, before finally settling into the 
steady flood that constitutes the rainy June and July. 
The dry season steps cat-footedly into the wet. 

The shower, that had fallen upon the exiles with such 
fierceness, was of short duration ; and, in a few moments, 
a sudden sunbeam pierced the grove. 

“Where shall we go now ?” inquired Barbara. 

“ To the ship,” answered Rodney ; and they wended 
their way through the dripping trees and watery grass in 
search of the cove. The road was rough, difficult and 
tiresome. The sun came out, hot and oppressive. A 
calm settled on the sea. Stillness reigned over the green 
landscape. Not a leaf stirred. 

Barbara, who was yet in her pupilage in the art of walk- 
ing on the uneven soil, fought her way awhile through the 
wet paths, full of rough stones and sharp briars, and soon 
complained of fatigue. 


GOLGOTHA. 


175 


“Let us sit and rest/’ said she. “Why should we 
haste ? This is our first day on the land ; let us make it 
a long one ! ” 

Dr. Vail looked about for a resting-place. He found 
one in the shadow of some scattered trees. It was a ledge 
of rock which, with a few detached boulders, gave the tired 
explorers a choice of adamantine cushions — the same choice 
which Jacob had of pillows when he slept at Bethel. 

“Where is Beaver ?” asked Barbara, who had once be- 
fore spoken of the dog’s absence* and now lifted her voice 
and called him ; but Beaver did not come. 

“ Beaver feels his liberty,” remarked Rodney. “ Let 
him enjoy it. He will not be lost ! ” 

Beaver had been nosing in the water, and been nipped 
by a crab. This was a new sensation to a dog accustomed 
to receive respect, and gave him an unpleasant impression 
of the world. He accordingly had gone swimming back 
to the Coromandel in disgust. 

At length the travelers reached the cove where the ship 
lay. 

Barbara, who knew her mother’s feebleness and feared 
the results of over-exertion, said to her, 

“ Mother dear, if you walk more to-day you will not be 
able to stir a step to-morrow. Besides, Jezebel has been 
deserted long enough. Father, please go on board with 
mother, but let me stay a little while on shore to roam 
about alone.” 

Mrs. Vail at first demurred to this, but when Barbara 
urged it, her mother reflected how much she would be 
withholding from her child to deny it, and assented 
graciously. 

Barbara was thus left alone on the island ; no human 
foot touching its soil save her own. 

“ So this,” said she, drawing a long breath, “ this is 
the world, and I am in it at last ! Is it possible that I am 


176 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


out of my prison and am free ? Let me then have a taste 
of my freedom all to myself ! ” 

To make her escape from bondage all the more mani- 
fest, she walked back from the shore out of sight of the 
ship, and sauntered at will into any and every path that 
lured her feet. Nor did she think of marking her way 
of return, for having never had any experience of getting 
lost, she thought of no precaution against going astray. 

As she walked along she gazed with soul-lit eyes at 
everything she passed :at the billowy waves of the land, 
which she still kept expecting to see move and roll like 
the hillocks of the sea ; at the fruits which she plucked 
and ate, none being forbidden as in the first Eden ; at the 
brilliant butterflies, more lustrous than the few stray yel- 
low-wings that had fluttered across the Coromandel’s deck 
at sea ; at the many purple-breasted birds that had no 
webbed feet and never dipped their wings into the salt 
waves ; and at the beautiful snakes, harmless and graceful, 
and as bright as Madame D’Arblay’s neck-ribbons of 
watery-green. 

“ 0, what wonderful colors ! ” exclaimed the girl look- 
ing at the flowers that had been freshened by the rain. 

She toyed affectionately with the buds, yet shrank from 
breaking their stems. 

“ They are alive,” said Barbara, “ and if I pluck them 
they will die. Let them live. Life must be sweet to 
all living things. Perhaps a flower’s life is sweeter to it- 
self than its own fragrance can be to any other creature. 
These roses are fragile enough at best, and short-lived — 
why should I destroy them before their time ? ” 

Barbara was the more impelled to this conviction be- 
cause, having seen the butterflies first and the flowers 
afterward, she fancifully regarded the flowers as another 
species of butterflies which might at any moment lift their 
wings and fly off their stalks. 




GOLGOTHA. 177 

In the midst of the variegated scene, Barbara was bewil- 
dered and delighted, but not satisfied. 

“ Ho,” said she, “ I am not content ; this is enchant- 
ment and yet disenchantment. It is not the world I 
sought to enter. It gives me no human society. 0, if 
Lucy Wilmerding were only here ! 0 that, like her, I 
could go among my fellow-creatures ! But perhaps God 
keeps me back from entering the real world because I am 
not fit to mingle with it — because I might not know how 
to act if I were in it. Possibly I am such a ‘ sea-mew 9 (as 
my mother calls me) that I ought always to live on the 
waters. Of course I cannot be Lucy Wilmerding, yet why 
was I made if I am to be nothing at all ? ” 

Barbara spoke these thoughts aloud. This was her cus- 
tom in soliloquy. She had never cultivated reticence 
or repression, except concerning one solitary name and 
theme. 

“ After all,” she exclaimed, “ the world, whether on sea 
or land, is more full of sunshine than of cloud ; and this is 
a sign that the soul also should have more peace than pain. 
It shall be so with this heart of mine.” 

Barbara then rallied herself to one more effort against 
disappointment — an effort to realize, if not all, at least a 
part of her day-dreams of the land of Beulah. 

They who expect the most from the world are they who 
have had the least experience of it. 

Barbara, whose lifetime had yielded no experience of it 
at all, knew not which of its wonders to seek for first. In 
her simplicity, she actually found herself looking for Mt. 
Blanc, with its crown of eternal snow ; for Niagara, with 
its everlasting song ; for the Mississippi’s stream, with its 
ribbon of silver ; for the solemn-throated Vesuvius, belch- 
ing up its flame ; for the cattle on a thousand hills, that 
she saw forever browsing in her fancy ; for the camel under 
the palm-tree; for the deer drinking at the mountain- 


178 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


brook ; for the apple-blooms of Pritchard farm ; for the 
primrose, the violet, the daisy, the aster, the golden rod ; 
for all these and a thousand other sights great and small 
did Barbara gaze about her ; but instead of finding them 
out-spread in beautiful array before her eyes, she ominously 
beheld the afternoon sun declining into a fit emblem of 
her morning’s hopes. 

“Now I must return,” said she, “for the day is fleeting 
away.” 

Attempting to retrace her steps, she did not know the 
way back. She wandered first in one direction, then in 
another, never getting into the old paths, but only into 
new. She was in a labyrinth, and a lengthening shadow 
was creeping over it to hide all clews of return. The 
thickets tore her dress ; the branches caught her hair ; 
the stones bruised her feet. She often stumbled and some- 
times fell. 

“ Oh, how rough the path is ! ” she exclaimed, “ how 
thorny, how distressing ! ” 

Barbara was beginning life in earnest, and at every suc- 
cessive hour the present reality seemed more and more a 
mockery of her previous ideal. Still the lovely maiden was 
not a babe. Like all children of the tropics, she had devel- 
oped early both in body and character, and was now stout 
of heart and sinewy of frame. So she went on through 
the thickets as the ship had gone through the sea — without 
chart or helm — lost but not harmed. 

“ Why do my hands burn ? ” she exclaimed, alarmed at 
a strange sensation in her finger-tips. 

Barbara had here and there trailed her fingers gently 
along a pink-stemmed vine with dark leaves, and this 
creeper had returned her graciousness by poisoning her 
hand, till it was now swollen with pain. 

Then a cloud rose out of the sea, covered the west, hid 
the sun, grew red with a glory unutterable, paled, faded, 


GOLGOTHA. 


179 


and left a twilight in which the stars began to peep forth 
one by one. 

“ Where is the ship ? ” sighed the pilgrim. “ Am I near- 
ing the coye or going away from it ? Alas, I cannot tell.” 

Looking for a hill to climb, there seemed now to be noth- 
ing but a rolling country with no particular knoll higher 
than another. She saw the ocean — that was plain enough ; 
so was the sky ; but she could not discover the cove nor 
the Coromandel. 

“ 0, which is the way back ?” exclaimed the bewildered 
maiden. 

Another cloud arose, not in the west, but in the east, 
just as in the forenoon. First there came with it a swift 
breeze ; then a few drops of rain ; then a stronger puff of 
wind ; then a heavier dash of rain ; then lightning, first 
far off, then with loud thunder crackling near by ; and at 
last a pouring flood — the morning’s deluge over again 
— Nature’s second experiment in bringing on the rainy 
season. 

“ To what refuge,” she cried, “can I flee ? ” 

Barbara escaped into a thicket of dense, old trees, and 
sat down on a fallen trunk that was covered with lichens 
and moss. 

The weather-beaten girl had been in storms before, but 
she then had human companionship — the friendliest which 
all the world could offer to her. Now she was alone and 
full of fear. Alone ! This was a sensation that she had 
never before experienced. Never for a day or a night had 
she been separated from her parents until now. And now 
she was simultaneously overtaken by three grim terrors— 
night, tempest, and solitude. 

“0, lam sick at heart ! ” murmured the lonely child. 

Her feet were blistered, her hands were full of poisonous 
pain, and her heart panted with anxiety at the distress 
which she knew her parents would feel at her absence. 


180 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ 0, my dear father and mother, what will you do with- 
out your daughter, and what will your daughter do without 
you ? ” 

Just then the wind opened the branches above her head, 
and let the rain down upon her. 

She rose hastily and groped her way still further under 
the trees to the denser foliage. She staggered forward 
until she could see nothing at all. It was pitch dark. No 
rain fell on her now — not a drop. The ground itself was 
not even wet — only cool enough to be almost cold. The 
chills ran from her body into her soul. Where was she ? 

Barbara wept bitterly. 

During the past few years, Barbara had borne many sor- 
rows, yet she had shed few tears. Unused were her eyes 
to such dews. Fire was plentiful in them ; sparkles were 
there often ; mirth glittered in them on occasion ; love shone 
in them always ; but tears were rare guests in those blue orbs. 

“ 0 how my head reels ! how my temples throb ! ” she cried. 

Weakness, faintness and drowsiness oppressed her flesh 
and spirit. Her mind began to wander. She fancied the 
ship gone away and her parents gone also, so that they 
would never come for her. Her wild thoughts wearily 
ranged from one dreadful image to another, until in her 
unknown shelter, lying on the breast of Mother Earth, 
she at last, like a fretful infant that sobs itself to rest, fell 
asleep. 

Poor Barbara’s eyes, once shut, were locked too tight to 
be opened by the shimmering heat-lightnings that played 
round the sky, and that pierced the grove with momentary 
luridness. 

But well was it for her that no fitful gleam revealed to 
her the ghastly chamber in which she was lying ! Well 
was it that she had no suspicion of her place of rest ! 
Well was it that she knew not in what grim comnany she 
slept ! For Barbara had hideous and unknown compan- 


GOLGOTHA. 


181 


ions. They stayed with her during all her slumber, yet 
did not waken her ; they did not awake themselves ; they 
slept a still sounder sleep than hers. They were the eleven 
human skulls ! 

Barbara was fast asleep in the Hermit’s Chapel. 

Poor Barbara, take your rest ! Hear tired maiden, sleep 
awhile ! — do not open your eyes too soon ! — not until the 
storm is over-past ! Poor heart-broken, sleep-comforted 
Barbara ! Heaven protect you in your loneliness and in- 
nocence ! 

Soon a fire-fly flew in, bearing his lighted lamp ; then 
another followed ; then another. 

These were the West Indian fire-flies that rank among 
the wonders of the world ; the same burning and shining 
lights which Basil Ringgrove found among those islands in 
the days of the buccaneers, declaring in his journal that a 
cluster of these glow-worms at night, on a branch or twig, 
seemed to him like a beacon-fire in the woods, and that 
even a single one of them, if put under a wine-glass in his 
ship’s cabin, gave him light enough to write his notes ; the 
same torch-bearers which Gosse, the entomologist, describes 
as carrying each on his back two lights like the bull’s-eyes 
of a ship’s deck, emitting a vivid greenish and golden 
splendor ; the same insects which Latrelle, the naturalist, 
measured an inch in length, and found so fiery that a 
handful hung in a glass globe would illumine a chapel for 
vespers. 

In the West Indies, no night can be dark when these 
lamp-lighters take a freak to illumine it. While Barbara 
slept, the fire-flies, having been roused from their lodging 
in the green leaves by the pelting rain, and fleeing for shelter 
elsewhere, followed their habit to fly in at an open door or 
window, and thus found their way into the Hermit’s Chapel, 
first by twos and threes, then by dozens and scores, after- 
wards by hundreds, until at last they were as numerous as 


182 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


if a swarm of bees had mistaken the chapel for a hive. 
They settled on the floor, on the ceiling, on the window- 
sills, on the door-posts, on Barbara’s sleeping form, and on 
the eleven ancient skulls. Their light, proceeding from 
no one point, but from all points, was without shadow. It 
revealed every nook and cranny. It gilded every grain of 
sand,. every spider’s web, every particle of floating dust. 
It set the very atmosphere on fire. 

The tired girl, who slept through the fierce lightnings of 
heaven, slept also through these gentler lightnings of the 
earth. Her face was illumined as if she were in the sun- 
shine, only with an unearthly hue. She lay with her head 
on her arm, sleeping a child’s sleep. She looked more 
dead than death, more alive than life. A swarm of the fire- 
flies settled in her hair, but nothing else touched her. A 
snappish toad hopped about, attempting to catch the 
gilded flies, but he respected Barbara. The green lizard, 
that had fled at the opening of the door, had long since 
returned, and was fast asleep on one of the skulls — his back 
now more green and brilliant than by day. The little 
ground-mice, unaccustomed to the great light, and to their 
human guest, were whist and mute, and dared not vent- 
ure forth. 

Barbara continued to sleep. 

Meanwhile the rushing rain no longer poured, but only 
pattered ; then no longer pattered, but only trickled ; and 
at last altogether ceased. 

As soon as the noise of the tempest was lulled, and the 
air was still enough to convey other sounds than of , the 
roaring winds, there arose a strong and agonizing cry of a 
human voice, shouting “ Barbara ! ” Again, at short in- 
tervals as of a minute-gun, it could be heard crying 
“ Barbara ! ” Above all the strange stridulations, 
screechings, ringings, pipings, and chirpings which, 
after the rain, burst forth like a chorus from beasts. 


GOLGOTHA. 


183 


birds, and insects, this solitary voice of human woe went 
on exclaiming “Barbara!” Conquering all other noises 
it covered the whole island, penetrated the thicket, echoed 
through the Hermit’s Chapel, and made the very roof re- 
echo thie name “ Barbara ! ” 

O the piercing power of a human voice with an agoniz- 
ing soul behind it lending anguish to its cry ! The sleeper 
heard it, and awoke. She sat up and looked round her, 
dazed. 

“ Where am I ? ” she cried, rubbing her swollen eyes 
with her swollen hands. “ This strange daylight — what is 
it ? These shining creatures, creeping and flying about ? 
what are they ? They fill the whole cabin ! — They are 
all over the ship ! — They are on my hands — my feet — my 
head ! 0 father, drive them away ! ” 

Brushing the night-films from her eyes, and perceiving 
the skulls, she clasped her hands to her temples and 
shrieked, 

“ 0 heaven, I am in the charnel-house ! ” 

She fell to the earthen floor in a swoon, and lay senseless 
on the cool, damp ground — clay to clay — dust to dust. 

Meanwhile, over the low hills, a crying voice rose fainter 
and further in the distance, until its repeated shriek be- 
came a dull call, then a muffled moan, and finally a far-off 
murmur, but always the one vain cry — “Barbara !” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


FOUNDED ON A EOCK. 


ARBARA’S parents, when they went on board the 



Coromandel, leaving the jubilant maiden alone on 
the island to enjoy her first liberty by roaming at her own 
sweet will, little dreamed that her first day on the green 
earth was to end in a hideous night, in a sepulchre, among 
dead men’s bones. 

Jezebel, who missed Barbara, demanded the cause of 
her absence, and on being informed, was filled with alarm 
and solicitude. 

“Massa Vail,” exclaimed that rarely-worried woman, 
“ dere is danger to de lamkin in dis strayin’ from de flock 
— dis wanderin’ from de fold. We must go after de lost 
one. Ole Bel is agwine to start right away. Massa Vail, 
put me into de basket, and tote me ashore. De Lord 
won’t let de rope break. Beaver, you ole rheumatiz, come 
along. What’s de good book say? ‘Widout are dogs.’ 
Now how can dogs be widout, if dey stay all de time in de 
cabin, on a rug, fas’ asleep ? Come, ole lazy bones, let’s 
go and find our dear lamb.” 

The old woman’s energy and will, her determination to 
go, and her instinct that some peril would otherwise befall 
Barbara, impelled both Dr. Vail and his wife to join Jeze- 
bel in the search, though they did not consider Barbara 
exposed to any harm. 

All three shortly left the ship and went ashore. 


184 


FOUNDED ON A ROCK. 


185 


“ Dis aint like de ole Pritchard farm/’ said Jezebel. 
“ Nobody’s been attendin’ to de fences ; nobody’s been a 
hoin’ de garden ; nobody’s been a pullin’ up de weeds. 
Eyeryt’ing is runnin’ wild. Barbara too is runnin’ wild. 
Where is she ? What’s de good book say ? ‘ Lo, I am 

here!’ Den why aint Barbara here? Somethin’ is 
wrong.” 

Dr. Vail, who had no such apprehension, was just then 
thinking, not of Barbara, but of the eleven skulls. 

“ Mary,” said he, “in the bloody days when nations 
were mere flocks of sheep born to be led to the slaughter, 
Tamerlane in Asia built monuments of gory heads — to 
fester, bleach, and grin in honor of his name. Montezuma 
reared in Mexico a pyramid terraced with the heads of his 
slain foes. How singular that these two conquerors — one 
in the Orient, the other in the Occident — separated by a 
great gulf of time and history — should each, in ignorance 
of the other, have commemorated their butcheries by piles 
of human heads ! How, in comparison with these ancient 
millions of decapitated men, how. insignificant in number 
are the few skulls in the Hermit’s Chapel. Nevertheless, 
as we take a more pathetic interest in the death of one 
man than of half an army, so the eleven skulls in our Gol- 
gotha affect me more tenderly than if I had seen Tamer- 
lane’s monument or Montezuma’s pyramid. The dumb 
occupants of our charnel-house seem to me more alive 
than dead.” 

“0 Rodney/’ exclaimed Mary, shuddering, “I have 
been in dread of them ever since I saw them this morn- 
ing. They are before me whichever way I look. I can 
see them open their eyes — I can hear them rattle their 
jaws and grind their teeth. They fill me with horror.” 

Dr. Yail put forth various conjectures concerning the 
skulls. He did not know that among the early Spaniards 
in the West Indies a custom prevailed of inscribing the 


186 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


skulls of the dead with requests for prayers for their 
departed souls. The skulls, thus marked, were deposited 
in some sacred resort and exposed to the pious pity of 
passers-by, who, on reading the inscriptions, might per- 
haps be moved to beseech heaven to grant the departed 
souls a safe passage through purgatory to paradise. 

Probably not for a century had any human being saluted 
the little congregation of the dead in the Hermit’s Chapel 
till Kodney Vail broke in upon the solitude of those sad, 
silent Pharisees, “forever praying, to be seen of men.” 

The French buccaneers and the Spanish settlers, living 
always at war with each other, frequently captured not 
only one another’s marketable goods, such as the gold of 
Panama, the pearls of Cum ana, and the boucan of San 
Domingo, but also each other’s church-bells, crosses, pict- 
ures, altar-cloths, and other sacred gauds. 

With these trophies the marauding Brethren of the 
Coast built chapels for their pious hours in various out-of- 
the-way places on the islands. 

Some of the buccaneers have left enviable reputations 
for devout strictness in the faith. For instance. Captain 
Sawkins threw overboard all dice which he saw in use on 
Sundays. Captain John Watling compelled his jovial crew 
to keep the solemn feasts of the church. Captain De 
Montro rose during a chapel service, drew his pistol on a 
drunken sailor who was disturbing it, shot him dead, 
ordered the corpse to be immediately removed from the 
holy house, and had the reverent satisfaction of seeing the 
service proceed with heightened solemnity to the end. 
Thus was religion respected in those islands ! 

Mary stopped suddenly, and clung timorously to her 
husband’s arm. 

“Look,” said she, pointing between the dense trees, 
“yonder is another weather-beaten and desolate house. 
It is another burial vault. Let us go back.” 


FOUKDED 02* A ROCK. 


187 


It was a small house, not unlike the other, though not 
so large, and had no cross or other ornament oyer the 
door. 

“My dear husband,” exclaimed his timorous wife, “do 
not enter this strange house.” 

Rodney advanced to the door-step. 

No lock was on the door, nor fastening of any kind ; 
and instead of a knob, there was a richly ornamented 
brass handle covered with mold — which Rodney con- 
jectured to have been the handle of a sea-chest. 

“ I shall try to enter,” said he. 

Pushing the door with his hand, it grated harshly on 
rusty hinges, and swung open with a groan, disclosing the 
antique interior of a small, low dwelling-house, with 
windows of stained glass. 

“ This also must be a chapel,” said he. 

He was wrong in his conjecture. 

A closer scrutiny showed that the windows were frag- 
ments of what had once been the great window of some 
church or cathedral in another part of the world. The 
original window had been broken to pieces, and some of 
its brilliant bits been brought hither for resetting in three 
of the four walls of this little house. The miscellaneous 
jumble lost here all its ecclesiastical meaning, but presented 
a kaleidoscopic medley of many lustrous lights. 

On the one wall that had no window was a grotesque and 
highly-colored image of the Blessed Virgin, which evidently 
had never been a church ornament, but only a ship’s 
figure-head. 

There was a solid floor of lignum vitae, laid at some 
distance above the ground. 

Among the objects scattered about the room were a few 
chairs of fantastic pattern, each unlike the others ; a round 
table of European workmanship ; and a solid chest inlaid 
with brass. 


188 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Adjoining the main apartment were two small chambers, 
each opening into it through a narrow door, on either side 
of the Virgin’s image. These two chambers had each a 
window of stained glass, containing more of the unmean- 
ing but glittering fragments of the same cathedral design. 

In each chamber was a quaint, narrow bedstead made of 
brass rods, designed to be folded and carried away in small 
compass. 

On the wall of each chamber was a crucifix, with a foot- 
stool under it for a prie-dieu. 

“This house,” said Mrs. Vail, “has been the abode of 
some pious Catholic family, probably Spaniards. Their 
dead were buried in the other structure ; the living dwelt 
here — making their dwelling-house their chapel. The 
Apostle says, ‘ Commend me to the church that is in thine 
house . 5 I thought I should dread to enter this place, but 
I am charmed to be here.” 

Mrs. Vail was almost as delighted at seeing a human 
habitation as if it had contained a human inhabitant. The 
impression previously left on her mind by the scene in the 
charnel-house was now effaced completely by the solemn 
beauty — the “dim, religious light” — of this unexpected 
abode. 

Jezebel, who from the moment of entering had not said 
a word, but gazed stolidly at the garish surroundings as if 
entertaining a Cromwellian disdain for such sacred finery, 
discovered an object more interesting to her curious mind. 

“What’s dat ?” she exclaimed. “Why sure as you’re 
born, dat’s a chist. Den I must rummage it. What’s de 
good book say ? ‘ Man looketh at de outward appearance, 
but de Lord looketh at de heart.’ Now to look at de 
heart is to peak into de inside.” 

Whereupon the dusky dame, who had early established 
a monopoly of such rummagings on the ship, tried to open 
the chest. Like the doors of the house, the lid was un- 


FOUNDED ON A KOCK. 


189 


locked ; there was a lock upon it, but no key ; the hinges 
were rusty ; nevertheless, after a little tugging and strain- 
ing by Jezebel, assisted by Rodney, the strong box was 
opened. 

The contents consisted, first, of a wicker-case of wine- 
bottles filled with wine, waxed and wired about the neck, 
showing that they had been carefully sealed ; next, a few 
sacred articles used to decorate a Roman Catholic altar, 
together with a rosary of beautiful beads and an illumi- 
nated breviary ; finally, a small bundle of manuscripts on 
stiff paper, resembling parchment or some other dried 
skin. 

“ If wine,” said Rodney, “ improves with age, this is 
old enough to be the best.” 

“ These papers,” observed Mary, turning over the manu- 
scripts, “ may possibly tell us the story of the island.” 

On examination, most of the records were found to be 
not Spanish but French — old French, which it was diffi- 
cult to decipher accurately, yet it appeared that the entries 
were accounts of merchandise bought and sold — chiefly of 
boucan and hides. 

Another of the parchments may be freely translated as 
follows : 

*' I, Francois Garcelon, brother of the Brethren of the Coast, having 
lost by death my beloved comrade Manuel de Bruyere, and peace 
having been declared between France and her enemies, and being 
myself in great age and desiring to lay my bones in Brittany, hereby 
bequeath my house, and whatsoever goods and chattels I shall leave 
therein, to the Brethren of the Coast, to be awarded by them to some 
brother thereof, who shall comply with the conditions hereunto an- 
nexed ; the same being, first — that he is poor and needy — and second, 
that he shall say daily an Ave and a Paternoster for this testator’s 
soul. 

( Day of St. Agnes, Anno Domini 1693. 

(Signed,) j Francois Garcelon, aged 71 years.” 


190 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ As to the two buildings/’ said Dr. Vail, “they were 
probably constructed by the Spaniards, who used one for 
a priest’s house, and the other for a chapel. The bucca- 
neers may then haye captured the island, and kept the 
priest’s house for a chapel, turning the real chapel into a 
store-house for their packed meats, and leaving the 
death’s-heads undisturbed in it to be sentinels against 
superstitious and God-fearing thieves.” 

Dr. Vail, by the help of old Garcelon’s papers, thus 
came to a correct solution of the mystery of the island 
and its hermitage. 

“Rodney,” said Mary beseechingly, “let us change our 
abode from the ship to this house.” 

“ Yes,” chimed in Jezebel, who stood in mortal dread 
of being drawn back to the Coromandel in a basket, “let’s 
camp down in dis spick-span place. What’s de good book 
say ? ‘ Dis is de Lord’s house — dis is de gate ob hebben 

to our souls.’” 

The rain that had been threatening during these inves- 
tigations, and that already began to fall before the 
wayfarers noticed the gathering of the clouds, now startled 
Dr. Vail, and he rushed out of the house to find Barbara. 

He looked for the truant near and far ; he called her 
loud and long ; he sought for her over the whole island. 
He retraced his steps to the house to see if she had acci- 
dentally found it in his absence. But she had not. Think- 
ing then that she might have gone to the ship, he 
hastened thither, and went on board, but saw the great 
hulk for the first time utterly deserted of all occupants 
save himself. 

“ Ho, she is on the island,” he exclaimed, and he hurried 
back again in the basket to the shore. 

Sallying forth in a renewed search he was soon over- 
taken by the twilight and then by the night. It was now 
that he lifted up his voice and began so agonizingly to call 


founded on a rock. 


191 


the name of Barbara. The only reply was echo after echo. 
Meanwhile Mary and Jezebel, at the house, were in indes- 
cribable grief. So, altogether, the first night which all the 
members of his little family spent on the much-coveted 
land proved to be the most miserable hours of their whole 
lifetime. Such is the vanity of human expectations ! 

Meanwhile Barbara, who had first awakened in the Her- 
mit’s Chapel amid the fire-flies and skulls, and who then 
in fright had fallen to the ground in a swoon, was far too 
exhausted to rally again, but passed into a natural and 
heavy sleep. 

She lay motionless in her strange, fire-lit chamber till 
the night had well-nigh waned. 

Beaver, meanwhile, too much exhausted for further 
tramping with his master, and not comprehending the ob- 
ject of the tramp, lagged behind Rodney, and at last com- 
posed his aged limbs to rest under a tree — the only kennel 
of this sort which he had ever known. 

At length when the morning drew nigh, a young woman 
stood on a hill-top, fear-stricken and bewildered, bare- 
headed and haggard, before yet a streak of dawn had 
dimmed the stars,— gazing intently toward the gloomy 
sea, waiting for light enough to discover her way to the 
ship. 

It was Barbara ! — poor agonized Barbara ! — to whom 
the world, which she had long sought and at last found, 
had in a few hours cruelly belied all her life-long expecta- 
tions, and turned her promised delights into woes. 

At the same hour, at a littlt distance off, a bare-headed 
man with iron-gray hair was picking his way up the same 
hill, crackling onward through the branches, his garments 
wet, his feet sore, his face pale, and his manner desperate. 

It was Barbara’s-father !— more distracted and haggard 
than herself. 

In & moment they met : they met without a word, for 


192 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


neither could speak : they simply threw their arms around 
each other and wept. 

There they stood, clasped heart to heart. 

Not among all the twinkling lights that glowed upon 
them from the sky, was there a more heavenly fire than 
burned within those two human breasts, melting each; 
• — the one with paternal, the other with filial love. Each 
had loved the other for a lifetime, but neither had ever 
felt — not even during the brief struggle overboard — the 
full force of Nature’s tie between them, until this last pro- 
longed and horrible test. It was a mutual revelation. 

At length Barbara, in excess of joy, her mind once more 
springing to its natural sprightliness, exclaimed : 

“ 0 father, I have for years chased a rainbow, following 
it round the world, hunting for the sack of gold that lies 
at its foot, but I have now found a richer treasure in my 
father’s love.” 

Swift and hurried were the explanations between them, 
and they started with weary yet jocund feet to give joy to 
the lonely watchers in the ancient house. 

They reached this new home just as the dawn touched 
the east with purple — Barbara herself being the chief sun- 
beam that brought the day. 

The rapturous greeting which the lost child received 
from her mother went to Barbara’s heart with a sweet 
repetition of the joy she had experienced in her father’s 
arms. 

“ My daughter,” said her mother, “ we are going to quit 
the ship and live here. Look around. Heaven, you see, 
has beneficently provided for us a comfortable house. 
This has been once a Christian home — we can make it so 
again.” 

"It is very beautiful,” observed Barbara, “and the 
windows look like Madame D’Arblay’s kaleidoscope.” 

To Barbara the stained glass, the carved xskcirs, the 


FOUNDED ON A ROCK. 


193 


romantic history, and above all a house — an actual home 
— and on land — seemed a realization of one of life’s prom- 
ised pleasures. She immediately restored to its pedestal 
in her mind her original high opinion of the world, which 
since yesterday had been an idol overthrown. 

Aunt Bel, who had relished yesterday’s healthy havoc 
among the pine-apples and plantains, had already quietly 
stolen out of the house and brought back a bounteous arm- 
ful of dewy-cool and newly-plucked fruit. 

“ I aint agwine to cook no breakfast dis yer mornin’,” 
said she. “ What’s de good book say ? ‘Dey shall bring 
forth fruits, some sixty, some seventy, and some a hundred 
fold.’ ” 

Then, with happy hearts, the re-assembled family, having 
spread their luxuries on the ancient table, sat down to their 
first repast in their new home. As they partook of Nature’s 
fresh bounties, just gathered from her wild garden, they 
thought gratefully of the Giver of every good and perfect 
gift. 

“If,” observed Rodney, after the feast was ended, “if 
we all decide to sojourn here, rather than on the ship, for 
the next few days, or until I can build a boat for a voyage 
of discovery to the next island, I will bring ashore some 
of our goods and chattels to equip this ancient domain 
with some appurtenances of modern comfort.” 

Dr. Yail’s ferry-basket, in pursuance of this suggestion, 
ran back and forth a dozen or twenty times between ship 
and shore, importing (free of duty) all the articles which 
Mary and Barbara deemed essential for their domestic 
economy — such as knives and forks, cups and plates, table- 
cloths and towels, beds and mattresses, together with a 
few cans of meat. 

Such running to and fro, such rolling up of pillow-cases 
and sheets, such getting in each other’s way, such jesting 
at each other’s mistakes, indeed such a general frolic. Bar- 


194 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


bara bad never known in her life before, and she enjoyed 
it as a Frenchwoman enjoys a revolution. 

Beaver, however, remained a malcontent through the 
whole tumultuous scene, for he was very old, and was as 
much opposed to innovations as to crabs. He whined not 
a little, and grew so peevish that Barbara gently boxed his 
ears, — giving him just such a love-tap as a certain young 
sailor on a Federal gunboat would gladly have accepted in 
the dog’s stead, from the maiden’s hand. 

“ Dis house,” said Jezebel, “ will keep us safe and sound. 
What’s de good book say ? 4 Dere shall be a tabernacle in 

de day-time from de heat, and a covert from de storm and 
de rain.’ Massa Vail, I sometimes tink we are de lost tribes 
ob de chillen ob Israel, ’cause nobody else ’cep de Lord 
knows where to find us.” 

The noon came and brought its shower, but the busy 
family were safely ensconced under their sheltering roof, 
with their household gods ranged about them as in an 
antique temple. 

Dr. Vail, in portioning out the house to its occupants, said, 
“ Mary and I will take the large room, Barbara the left- 
hand chamber, and Jezebel the right.” 

“ Jist so,” observed Jezebel. “ What’s de good book 
say ? ‘ In my Fader’s house am many mansions.’ ” 

“ I wonder,” said Barbara, “ how these beautiful windows 
will look with the moonlight shining through them ? I 
am impatient for the night to come. There will be a moon. 
These painted panes, I think, must show the same colors 
that Madeline saw on St. Agnes’ Eve. I wonder if the 
moonlight will stream through them for me as it did for 
Madeline ? ” 

At last the night came, and Mrs. Vail said, 

“ There ! we did not think to bring any lamps.” 

“ Never mind,” replied Barbara, “ keep the door open, 
and the lamps will come flying in of themselves.” 


FOUNDED ON A ROCK. 


195 


Just then, as If to fulfil her word to the letter, in came, 
driven by the freshening breeze, a little squad of three 
fire-flies traveling together. They flew about the room 
awhile, and finally lighted on the Virgin’s image, giving as 
much light as if consecrated candles were burning on a 
church-altar. Then more of these weird insects straggled 
in, settling quietly on various objects until they illumined 
the room as with astral flames. 

Mary Vail opened her Bible, and by the strangest light 
that ever enabled her to scan its familiar pages (for it bur- 
nished them with a mild shimmer of gold and green), she 
read aloud the following passage : 

Whither shall I go from Thy spirit ? Or whither shall I flee from 
Thy presence ? If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there ; if I make 
my bed in hell, behold Thou art there. If I take the wings of the 
morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall 
Thy hand guide me and Thy right hand shall hold me. Even the 
night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness and the light are 
both alike to Thee. 

“ I am reminded,” said Dr. Vail to Barbara, “that 
seventeen years ago, on the last night that your mother 
and I spent in our native land, and before you were born, 
old Grandfather Pritchard opened the family Bible and 
read aloud to us those same words. On the next morning 
we went to Boston and sailed on the long, long voyage 
which has only just come to an end.” 

“Yes,” observed Mary, pleased with the reminiscence, 
“ I too was thinking of that same evening — so I turned 
to the same passage.” 

By the light of the fire-flies, the little company, sitting 
in different attitudes about the room, presented a pictur- 
esque appearance. Rodney was stretched on the floor, 
resting his head on Beaver for a pillow — a familiar attitude 
both for man and dog. Barbara sat in a grotesquely 


196 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


carven chair, its arms terminating in griffin’s claws, each 
talon clasping a round ball ; and in the intervals of the 
conversation she watched the luminous insects whose 
light made a strange struggle with the light of the rising 
moon, as if the two splendors tried to outdo each other. 
Mrs. Yail pored silently over the sacred book from 
which she had been reading. Jezebel sat thinking of 
Pete, her face glowing in the light of the fire-flies, till 
it shone like some huge animated bronze, or as if the 
statue of Memnon had been touched at night with the 
rays of morn. 

At length the company dispersed to their rooms. 

As Barbara entered hers and closed the door, her heart 
beat with a strange delight. 

“ This is a palace of enchantment,” said she. 

That night, for the first time in her life, she was to 
sleep in a dwelling-house ! 

The room was, to her, a royal chamber. It was now 
filled with moonlight. The window, with its many-col- 
ored panes, seemed to invite St. Agnes to peep through it 
and to invade the pure maid’s dreams. 

But how could she dream unless she could sleep, and 
how could she sleep while a certain far-off prince and ideal 
hero held vigil in her mind ? 

“ For who at once can love and rest ?” 


So Barbara lay wakeful and wistful. 

Occasionally she lifted her fair arm into a slanting ray 
of purple or green light, to see the beams break and mend 
on her rounded and glowing flesh. The coverlid, that 
hid her under its fleece, was smitten with prismatic rays 
till it became spangled like a high priest’s breast-plate. 

In the midst of this midnight and moonlit splendor. 


FOUNDED ON A BOCK. 


197 


Barbara watched and gazed until weariness brought 
sleep. 

Then, at a charmed moment in her dream, there stole 
into the chaste chamber of her mind a young Porphyro 
whose name she never spoke aloud in her waking hours, 
but whom in her tell-tale slumbers she now saluted with a 
soft sigh, murmuring — “ Philip ! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS. 

1ST the next morning, Rodney Yail rose before the 



dawn, and hastened through the dew-wet vines and 
grass to the cove, to see whether the Coromandel was safe 
and sound. 

His habit for years past had been to go on deck at this 
hour, in order to examine whether the water-drag was in 
its place — whether the hanging anchor had found bottom — 
whether the wind had changed — whether a ship was pass- 
ing — whether the pumps testified to a leak — or whether 
there was a prospect of reaching land. 

On this morning, he found himself once again following 
his familiar habit of looking after the Coromandel at day- 
break. 

A few swift glances satisfied him that the ship had not 
been disturbed, for she was lying in tranquil solitude, like 
a sleeper that did not mean to stir, even though the morn- 
ing had come. 

“ I am in the West Indies,” said he, “ and am therefore 
surrounded by commercial seas.” 

Inspired by a lively hope of hailing a vessel, he made 
his way to the summit of a hill commanding a wide hori- 
zon of dawn-lit water. He gazed with keen eyes, long 
and sadly. Ho ship was in sight save the Coromandel. 

“If yonder isle,” said he, “is as small as it seems, it can- 
not be larger than Grandfather Pritchard’s garden — it is 


198 


GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS. 199 

a mere handful of sand and grass ; nevertheless it is large 
enough to have a few human beings dwelling on it. I will 
put up a signal.” 

Dr. Vail’s idea was to cut a tall staff — perhaps a bamboo 
or cane (if the island would afford one) — and to erect it on 
this hill, in order to keep a pennon flying. 

“ After I have done this,” said he, “ perhaps I shall not 
need to build a boat ; my signal may be followed by im- 
mediate succor ; nevertheless as I have had small success 
in trusting to my hopes, I shall begin my boat-building 
without delay. On such a fair day as this, with the ocean 
as smooth as a lake, even a canoe would do for so short a 
voyage. ” 

On returning to the house, he found that Jezebel had 
been roasting plantains and preparing some other luxuries 
for the little family’s morning repast. 

“ What a beautiful morning ! ” observed Barbara. “ The 
air is sweeter than we have ever known it on board the 
ship. It is fragrant and cool.” 

Barbara was not the first discoverer of that delightful 
climate. Columbus, when he landed in Trinidad — not 
many miles away — found the air so balmy that he com- 
pared it with the enchanting spring-time in beautiful 
Valencia. The ancient Ophir, from which Solomon pro- 
cured the gold for the Temple at Jerusalem, was once sup- 
posed to be in this same quarter. The first voyagers of 
the Spanish Main located the Garden of Eden among these 
beautiful isles. 

After the little family partook of their fruity breakfast. 
Dr. Vail and Barbara, who were eager for adventure, left 
Mary in Jezebel’s care, and sallied forth to explore the 
region roundabout. 

“Let us go into our garden,” said Barbara. “I want 
to find the robin red-breast, that covered the babes in the 
wood with leaves ; and I want to see the chamois leaping 


200 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


from rock to rock— yes, and to see the mistletoe-bough, like 
the one in the story of Ginevra — and the zebra with his 
beautiful stripes — and the dear gazelle with its soft black 
eye — and the silk-worm that made Madame D’Arblay’s 
green dress — and the white elephant swinging his trunk 
— and the primrose, violet, daisy — yes, and the squirrel 
— 0, I want above all things to see a squirrel ! ” 

Dr. Yail smiled at his daughter’s ignorant and impossi- 
ble wishes, which she sent forth naively to the four quarters 
of the earth, and which for fulfillment would have required 
all its climates and seasons to be present at a moment’s 
notice on one spot. 

“Go whither you will,” said Dr. Yail, “I will follow.” 

Barbara’s spirit had now caught all the brightness of the 
sky. She had bravely put her disappointments and agonies 
behind her. The soul’s wounds quickly heal under the 
double magic of youth and hope. Fresher than the morn- 
ing itself, the maiden was as gay and brilliant as if her life 
were without a cross and her heart without a pang. 

“Let us now go,” said she, “into the deepest woods.” 

Barbara had read of the cedars of Lebanon, which to 
this day shade their ancient mountains with the self-same 
branches under which the patriarchs and prophets sat of 
old ; of the bread-fruit tree of Otaheite, with its nutritious 
loaf as large as a child’s head ; of the traveler’s- tree of 
Madagascar, catching the rain in its basin of leaves, and 
keeping it cool for the thirsty pilgrim in the dry season ; 
of the cypress of the Mediterranean, funereal and poetic ; 
of the baobab of Abyssinia, beloved by negroes and bees ; of 
the weeping-tree of the Canaries, distilling showers under 
a clear sky ; of the nutmeg-groves of Ceylon ; of the dragon- 
tree of Teneriffe ; of the upas of Japan, from whose poison- 
ous boughs the perching birds drop dead, and in whose shade 
a maiden who walks bareheaded shall see her tresses fall 
out hair by hair ; — Barbara had read of all these and many 


GREEH" PASTURES AKD STILL WATERS. 


201 


other wonderful growths of all zones ; and, notwithstand- 
ing her recent disappointments, she now had a dreamy ex- 
pectation of seeing all this scattered verdure of many lands 
gathered into the greenness of one small isle. 

Beaver, walking with an occasional limp, and greatly 
fretted by a frequent briar, now joined the two strollers, 
who, after wandering among the short and crooked lignum- 
vitse trees in a vain search for the mighty baobab and ban- 
yan, wended their way toward the Coromandel. 

“ My daughter, come and make a voyage with me on a 
raft,” said her father. 

Dr. Vail had noticed that the tide was beginning to flow 
up the cove. It would be flowing in this direction for four 
or five hours more. This suggested to him the idea of ex- 
temporizing a raft to drift to the head of the cove. 

Emptying the water from four of his casks, he laid them 
down on their sides, lashed them together, fastened the 
ship’s forward hatch on them for a floor, and launched his 
clumsy but buoyant barge. A boat-hook, a long oar, a 
rope, and an axe were put on board, together with a cane- 
chair for Barbara. The fair Cleopatra then took her seat, 
and Beaver personated Marc Antony at her side. Dr. 
Vail stood in front, and, giving a push with the oar, dis- 
lodged the little argosy from the sandy edge of the cove, 
and went voyaging up the gentle stream. 

“ 0 father,” cried Barbara, who noticed how the trees 
on the banks kept gliding past, “the island is running 
away ! ” 

The cove was fringed on both sides, east and west, with 
cocoa-nut trees. 

“ There are more cocoa-nut trees in the world,” said Dr. 
Vail, “than there are human beings. How tall their 
trunks are ! Yonder tufted shaft is as high and straight 
as a Maypole. The bark is ringed. Count two rings for a 
year and you can tell how old the tree is.” 


202 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Barbara, lifting her forefinger, counted the rings and 
replied, 

“ A hundred and forty — that tree is seventy years old.” 

“ These cocoa-palms,” said her father, “love to grow by 
the sea. Their nuts are born sailors. Look ! one has just 
dropped into the water yonder — did you not hear the splash? 
See ! the dancing thing is in the centre of those ripples. 
How it sails along with the tide ! Every cocoa-nut, as 
soon as it drops into the water, goes wherever wind and 
tide will carry it. Sometimes it is cast up a thousand 
miles from where it grew, taking root in some sand-bar or 
barren beach. The little globe of the cocoa-nut is a world 
of itself ; many a man has found in it his house and home.” 

“ How so ? ” exclaimed Barbara, frowning a gentle dis- 
credit on the tale. 

“ When I was a boy,” said her father, “ I heard a story of 
the cocoa-nut, and of the many uses to which men have put 
it. A pilgrim was ready to drop under the noonday sun and 
perish in the sand from thirst, hunger and fatigue. He 
espied a little cabin, shaded by cocoa-palms. The sur- 
rounding region was a desert stretching miles away on 
either hand. The fainting traveler, taking hope at the 
sight of a human habitation, dragged himself forward 
to this refuge. Hospitality awaited him at the door. His 
host offered to his parched lips a cool, acid drink, sweet- 
ened agreeably with sugar. A bounteous repast was speed- 
ily prepared, consisting of several kinds of white meats, 
with a vegetable something like cabbage — all neatly served 
on highly-polished dishes which were neither of porcelain 
nor clay, but of fibrous wood. A wine of pleasant flavor, 
and an abundance of sweet milk, enriched the repast. 
Comfits and a strong cordial tasting like brandy were added 
as dessert. The pilgrim, after refreshing himself with 
these unexpected delicacies, rose from the table of his kind 
host and begged leave to examine his cottage. Its walls 


GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS. 


203 


were of durable wood ; its roof was of interwoven leaves ; 
its furniture was of many devices for convenience ; its bed- 
chamber contained a swinging hammock ; its floor was 
softened with matting ; and in one comer stood a writing- 
table, whereon lay parchments, pens, and an ink-horn, to- 
gether with a lamp and cruise of oil ready for the night — 
as if the hut were the retired haunt of some scholar pur- 
suing his studies remote from the world. But the chief 
novelty which the pilgrim admired was the strangely-woven 
garment worn by his host — a flexible and brownish fabric, 
harmonizing in color with the wearer’s olive complexion — 
as if the sun had tinged at the same time his face and his 
dress. At length the surprised guest exclaimed ‘ What a 
beautiful home you have here in the desert ! Many a 
camel must have brought you his burden of goods from 
afar, to supply you with so many comforts.’ ‘ No,’ replied 
the host, ‘ no camel’s foot has ever trod this road ; I live 
apart from the highways of the desert ; seldom does any 
human being stray into this isolated haunt.’ ‘ How, then,’ 
asked the guest, ‘ could you bring hither the luxuries of so 
many climes ?’ ‘ All these things, without a single ex- 

ception,’ said the host, ‘grew for me on my cocoa-palms. 
These useful trees enabled me to build my cabin. Their 
leaves supplied its thatched roof. My chairs and tables 
were all cut from the tree-trunks. This hammock, these 
mats, this garment that I wear — all were made from the 
fibrous threads of the cocoa-leaves. My scrolls of parch- 
ment, my pens, my ink — these too are gifts to me from my 
bountiful trees. The cool acid drink which you quaffed on 
your arrival was the water of the unripe nut — and some- 
times I have taken four pounds of water from a single nut. 
The milk which you relished came from the nut when fully 
ripe. The nutritious white meats— which you thought to 
be of several different kinds— all came from a single tree ; 
the variety arising from plucking the nuts at different 


204 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


stages of their growth. The cabbage was cut from the top 
leaves of the tufts. The wine was the fresh juice that flows 
from the flower-stalks on plunging a knife through their 
tender rinds. The cordial was the same juice after passing 
through distillment in the sun. The sugar was extracted 
from this cordial. The dishes and goblets were nut-shells 
which I have cut into various patterns, and have polished 
in my leisure hours. My lamp-bowl was made of one of 
the largest shells ; the oil, too, which I shall burn in it to- 
night, is from the same creamy nut. In short, everything 
I possess comes from my cocoa-palms ! 9 The pilgrim, 
after hearing this strange recital, thanked his host for 
such hospitality, and went on his way refreshed — not 
knowing which was the more admirable, the boundless 
prodigalitv of Nature or the ingenious wdtof man.” 

A bend in the cove now brought the voyagers to the 
head of it, where they found themselves amid a great variety 
of rank trees, bound together by a flowery cordage of vines 
running around their trunks and boughs. 

“ How can a tree,” asked Barbara, “ bear so many differ- 
ent kinds of flowers on the same branch ? 99 

“ It is not the trees,” said he, “that bear yonder flowers ; 
it is the vines that run up to the tree-tops and there out- 
spread their blossoms to the sky.” 

The two voyagers were now in the midst of a scene 
not extensive, but rich and ravishing. Fragrant vanillas 
drooped from the branches in graceful festoons. Varie- 
gated lianas twisted themselves upward spirally. Passion- 
flowers struggled with them in gay rivalry. Flame-colored 
heliconias enkindled the eyes of the gazers at every turn. 
Enormous bromelias, with innumerable flowers, flourished 
in musky rankness on trunks which they long ago had 
killed. Orchids, that feed “on the chameleon’s dish — the 
air,” grew without roots, as if foreign to the earth but 
congenial to the sky. 


GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS. 


205 


In the midst of this multitude of colors — white, deep 
yellow, light scarlet, rose, violet — all intertwined in one 
wild mass of concordant contrast — birds flew in and out 
whose plumage in the sunshine flashed a still brighter 
blazonry than the flowers. Some of these winged and 
burnished creatures were humming-birds, and while one of 
them hung poised over some honey-cup, he seemed to 
add another flower to the flower. Curious macaws emerged 
from their nests in the hollow trees and screamed at the 
strangers in shrill resentment at their intrusion. Proud 
and talkative paroquets added to the jargon their dissonant 
chatterings. In the occasional pauses a strange bird whose 
note was like a violin uttered his iEolian strain. The bird- 
of-paradise, stateliest of the little island’s feathered for- 
esters, bent his lemon-colored head in silent scrutiny of 
the human invaders, then stretched his emerald-green 
neck, lifted his chestnut wings, and soared away in fear. 

“ We have struck a snag,” said Rodney, “ and can go 
no further.” 

The little raft had reached a thicket of mangrove-trees 
— those banyans of the marsh, whose branches dip down- 
ward into the water as if yearning for the fellowship of 
their roots. Dr. Vail, in disentangling himself from this 
snare, laid hold of one of these submerged branches to 
lift it out of his way. 

“ It is as heavy as a stone,” said he, and drawing the 
sunken branch out of the water, he found it covered with 
oysters. 

Barbara, who had eaten many an oyster from a can, now 
for the first time ate one from its natural dish — the shell. 

“ What tall canes ! ” exclaimed her father, with an eye 
to his future flag-staff; and he waded ashore, chopped 
down an armful of bamboos, tied them together, and 
moored them in the water to the side of the raft. 

Beaver, during this voyage up a stream inhabited by 


206 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


crabs, bad hitherto manifested no disposition to leap over- 
board, but he now, in one eager moment, forgot his age, 
jumped into the shallow water, ran through a shower of 
his own splashings to the bank beyond, and disappeared in 
the thicket — his bark sounding along through it. Then 
he ceased to bark, and uttered a guttural growl as if 
munching a muskrat. Presently the crackling of branches 
announced that he was returning. In a few minutes he 
emerged from the thicket, proud, rejuvenated and master- 
ful-holding in his mouth a small animal, something in 
size and appearance like a rabbit. 

“ Dear father, is that a squirrel ? If so, my dog shall 
not bite it. Why, poor thing — it is dead ! ” 

“It is the agouti,” replied her father; “but I would 
rather that Beaver had caught a monkey, for that would 
have reminded us of the lost human race.” 

The sun was now in the zenith. The tide was beginning 
to ebb. It was time to return. 

“ For our voyage back,” said Rodney, “we must provide 
a shade.” 

Whereupon he .cut down one of those strange arbo- 
rescent ferns that grow as if in mocking imitation of the 
palm-tree, shooting up a tall slender stalk and crowning it 
with a thin outspread green umbrella of shady leaves. 

This graceful canopy Rodney held over his barge, and 
in the shadow of it drifted back on the ebb-tide to the 
Coromandel. 

In the afternoon, he raised his flag-staff and hoisted his 
flag. At first there was no breeze to straighten out the 
bunting; the old emblem drooped like a bird’s broken 
wing ; but at last a light wind from the north bore out 
the sluggish folds. Still, as the island to which Dr. Vail 
made signal lay directly northward, his flag could present 
only its edge to his neighbor’s eyes — if, indeed, he had any 
neighbor to see it at all. 


GREEK PASTURES AKD STILL WATERS. 207 

“My dear father,” said Barbara, “I must help you 
make your boat.” 

At Copenhagen, Rodney Vail had seen a Greenlander’s 
kayak — a light gossamer craft that danced on the water 
like a gull’s feather. A man sat in the middle of it, plying 
an oar or paddle with a blade at each end. The curious 
craft belonged to an old Baltic sailor who earned his living 
by teaching medical students (and other lovers of frolic 
and adventure) how to go kayaking for pastime. Dr. Vail 
had himself been one of these kayakers. He now under- 
took to build a kayak, using bamboo rods for a frame, 
barrel-hoops for ribs, and flannel for the inner sides and 
deck — the whole structure to be then covered with a water- 
tight sheathing made of three oil-cloth coats, cut into 
strips, and sewed together like the Greenlander’s seal- 
skins. 

“ I don’t like this boat,” said Barbara, after her father 
began to build it. 

“Why not?” 

“ Because it will hold only one person, and I cannot go 
with you.” 

Barbara assisted her father in binding the bamboo rods 
two by two — the tip of one against the butt of the other — 
so that two rods, thus fastened side by side, made one con- 
tinuous thickness and strength. The zealous maid had 
never learned to handle edged-tools, and yet in this sort of 
boat-building there was one instrument to which she had 
served an apprenticeship— this was the needle ; Barbara 
sewed every stitch both of the inner and the outer coating 
of the kayak. 

“ My daughter,” said her father one morning, “before 
we go to work on our boat to-day, let us make a journey 
of exploration round our island’s sea-edge. I want to ex- 
amine its coast-line. It will give us a five-mile walk.” 

Barbara started on this pilgrimage with great eagerness. 


208 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Beaver trudging along at her side, rearing a green collar 
of plaited ribbon-grass which she had woven round his 
neck. 

“ Look at this strange plant,” said Dr. Vail. “ It is a 
cactus, the porcupine of shrubs. Notice its tubercles and 
spines. Other flowers must moisten their beauty to keep 
it fresh ; but this plant grows on the hot, dry rocks, where 
nothing but itself withstands the sun. It was from a plant 
like this that your mother’s scarlet shawl took its color — 
red as the fire that Prometheus stole from the gods. On 
this plant lives the cochineal insect, that lends to fine 
ladies its carmine for a dye-stuff.” 

Turning from the cactus, Barbara came into the shadow 
of a stately tree — an erect trunk with dark, cracked bark, 
showing the wood within to be a dull gray. 

“I do not know this tree,” said Dr. Yail, who could not 
identify the small yellow flowers that covered it in multi- 
tudinous profusion. 

“ How its leaves shine ! ” said Barbara, and she crushed 
some of them in her right hand to feel their coolness ; for 
her poisoned hand was still feverish, and the touch of 
moist vegetation soothed the dull heat. 

Just then, shaken of the wind, one of the upper branches 
cast down a nut as large as a goose-egg. 

“Is this an apple ? ” asked Barbara. “ 0 how I want to 
see an apple ! 

“ No,” replied her father, who now recognized the tree 
by the fruit, “ this is a mango.” 

Dr. Vail, glancing through thetrees, saw the white sea- 
beach, and said, 

“ My daughter, you are not to be disappointed in every- 
thing ; one of your expectations is to be gratified ; you are 
to see the corals. I observe them gleaming j ust beyond us. ” 

Barbara, without turning to look in the direction her 
father had pointed, uttered a cry of pain. 


GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS. 209 

“ Have you been hurt ? ” he asked anxiously. 

“ Look ! ” cried the astonished girl, pointing to some 
light green plants. “ They wither at my touch. I trod 
on one and killed it, and now all the rest are afraid of 
me — they shrink away in terror ! ” 

Barbara had come upon a cluster of those beautiful 
mimosas known as sensitive plants. 

“No, my daughter, you have not killed them. See, 
they are already reviving. Do you think they have mis- 
taken you for some wild beast, come to rend them ? They 
would show the same pretty terror at any other touch, 
even at the stroke of a falling drop of rain.” 

The travelers had now arrived at the surf -beaten coast, 
where the rollers — with the morning sun shooting its low 
level rays through their pale green scrolls — presented a 
pageant of rare splendor. 

“We never saw such waves at sea,” said Barbara. 

“No,” said he, “for if one wishes to see breakers with 
the sun shining through them, one must be on the land.” 

She sat on a coral reef, whose exquisite branches disap- 
peared gradually in the water, as if the sea had rolled over 
a flower-garden and transmuted it into perennial stone. 

“ Look, father ! ” said she, pointing down into the briny 
bed. “ How like the cactus yonder coral is ! And here 
is one like the passion-flower — there one like the cocoa- 
palm — and there another like the plantain-leaf. Do you 
think the little insects that built these rocks really meant 
to model them after the plants on the island ? ” 

“My daughter, the same great Architect who dictated 
the shapes of both, is fond of making all the forms and 
moulds of Nature harmonize.” 

Barbara, who had brought her microscope on purpose to 
search for the living coral-insect, found this cunning arti- 
san in the midst of his toils : — a tiny white creature, so 
small that a thousand of them together would not make a 


210 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


snow-flake, and so delicate that when one of them is taken 
out of the water the fragile creature can hardly be kept 
alive long enough to he looked at before he dies : — and yet 
this insignificant and perishing white worm has built a 
great portion of the most enduring foundations of the 
earth, under-girding the great oceans with a solid masonry 
of rock, which, instead of wearing away, only augments 
with time. 

“ What is Beaver running after now ? ” asked his mis- 
tress, who saw him trot off again with remarkable celerity 
for so old a dog. 

Turning an abrupt corner of the shore, the strollers 
witnessed an animating spectacle— Beaver in full chase of 
a sea-turtle ! The dog had intercepted the alarmed amphib- 
ian in its escape from the shrubbery to the sea. But 
Beaver bit the shelly fugitive in vain, and might as well 
have gnawed a rolling rock. The unharmed turtle has- 
tened onward in a majestic flurry to the sea. Beaver 
plunged in after his escaping prey, but quickly returned 
empty-mouthed, and avenged himself by standing at the 
water’s edge howling dismally at his lost prize. 

A small army of turtles, that had been keeping company 
with the first, now took the alarm, and came scrambling 
down the sand-beach, scraping it with their flippers, and 
making their best speed from the clutches of dog and man 
into the safe refuge of the sea. 

“ Turn them on their backs,” cried Dr. Vail, turning 
one of the runaways upside down. 

Barbara ran to another and endeavored to treat him in 
the same way. At the stroke of his flipper, she shrank 
back from her formidable foe, and he made off into the 
water. She pursued another and another, and at last 
turned one over, leaving him to lie in his shell like a babe 
in a cradle. 

Her father had meanwhile overturned seven. 


GREEN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS. 211 

Beaver, in defiance of the proverb that “ old dogs cannot 
be taught new tricks,” now changed his point of attack 
from the turtle’s impregnable roof, ran his shrewd nose 
under the crawling creature’s side, and after receiving 
several bruises over his eyes from the strong flippers, suc- 
cessfully turned the victim over on his back, and mount- 
ing the prostrate lower shell, which now lay upward, gave 
a bark of triumph. 

Barbara added another to the catalogue of the captured, 
making two for herself, one for the dog, and seven for her 
father — ten turtles in all, out of perhaps one hundred and 
fifty. 

“ How shall we get them home ? ” asked Barbara. 

“ Toward evening,” said he, “ we will return here, and 
with Jezebel to accompany and assist us, we will hitch 
ropes to them and drag them quietly on their backs up 
through the grass to the house. And there they will make 
a dish to set before a king.” 

The two explorers proceeded on their journey. 

. “ What a strange tree !” cried Barbara, looking toward 

a gaunt trunk in the distance. “ What singular foliage ! 
The tree-tops look like a handful of dry sticks.” 

“The trunk is dead,” said Rodney, “and the tuft on 
the top is not foliage, but a fish-hawk’s nest. That nest 
was probably built fifty years ago. Successive genera- 
tions of fish-hawks have been born in it, lived in it, and 
died in it — leaving it to their posterity as an ancestral 
home.” 

Barbara stooped and picked up a conch-shell. 

“What a beautiful lining!” she exclaimed. “It is 
pink and purple.” 

“This shell,” said Rodney, “is the wonderful cup that 
holds the whole Atlantic ocean. Put the shell to your 
ear, my daughter, and you will hear all the roarings of all 
the seas.” 


212 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“It sings louder than these breakers,” she exclaimed 
with delight. 

Hitherto the explorers had been skirting the western 
side of the island ; they now reached its northernmost point 
and turned to follow its eastern coast. Here the wind was 
fresher ; the breakers were larger ; and the whole coast was 
rockier, presenting the bleak tokens of many storms. 

One of the relics was a sad monument in the shape of a 
few rotting ribs of a wrecked ship. How long this wreck 
had been lying there. Hr. Vail could not tell, but the sea- 
fowls of a hundred years may have perched upon its 
weather-beaten joints. 

This part of the coast, being constantly washed by the 
Equatorial Current, was strewn with thousands of waifs 
cast up by that incessant flood, lining it with chips, blocks 
of wood, fragments of spars, fish-bones, sea-weeds, scraps 
of ropes, lids of orange boxes, broken casks and barrels, 
and here and there a ship’s hatch or hen coop, or a boat’s 
broken oar. 

“ "What a museum of curiosities ! ” exclaimed Hr. Vail. 
“ Let us search among them. They have a strange con- 
nection with the outer world. They are memorials of our 
fellow-men.” 

Suddenly a sunbeam glanced from a bright object and 
dazzled his eyes. 

“ A wine-bottle,” said he, picking it up. “ It is sealed, 
and there is a paper rolled up inside of it. 0 Barbara, 
other ships have been wrecked like ours, and other cast- 
aways have sent messages from the great deep. But this 
little record was written in vain — it comes to an unin- 
habited shore. Nevertheless it shall not go unread by 
human eyes ; let me open it — we will give to the sad 
writer, whoever he may be, the sympathy of hearts that 
have suffered misfortunes like his own.” 

Breaking off the bottle’s neck and unrolling the paper. 


GREEK PASTURES AKD STILL WATERS. 


213 


Dr. Vail was thunderstruck at seeing his own handwriting! 
The sea had given hack to him the self-same letter which 
he had written a few weeks before to his father, and had 
thrown overboard from the Coromandel. It had probably 
kept company with the drifting vessel and reached the 
shore at the same time. Dr; Vail sat on a rock and 
sighed. 

“My daughter,” said he, “my hope is once more ship- 
wrecked. Alas ! am I never again to see my father’s face ? 
Even if he yet lives, he is past three-score and ten. But 
does he live ? Perhaps he is dead — yes, the good old man 
having no staff or prop for his declining years, and worn 
out with waiting for his unreturning son, may long ago 
have gone down to his grave, as his only refuge from 
sorrow and age.” 

Dr. Vail and Barbara walked silently homeward : the 
father still thinking of his father : the daughter thinking 
• — of whom ? 

Her musings were so mute, so shy, so far within, that 
the beloved object of these maiden meditations, if haply 
Barbara was thinking of somebody, or whispering the 
name of anybody, since she could he heard by nobody, 
must be left to the guess of everybody. 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE UNDER WORLD. 

T OOK !” exclaimed Dr. Vail, as lie stood by the 
flag-staff, early one morning, “ a whiff of smoke 
is rising from yonder island. Look, Barbara ! A bonfire 
has been kindled by the inhabitants to inform ns that 
our flag is seen. A few hours more, and we shall be 
rescued. The sun shall not set to-night before we are re- 
joined to the human race ! See how the smoke rises ! 
Yonder is where mankind dwell ! ” 

The vigilant observer watched through his glass for 
some sign of busy men embarking to meet him, but caught 
no glimpse of anything save breakers, sand and cocoa-palms. 

Hours passed, night came, day dawned again; and 
during all this time the smoke rose at intervals — as if the 
fire, whenever it died down, was promptly rekindled to 
keep the castaway in good cheer. 

The third morning came, and he noticed, as before, that 
after he raised his flag the smoke responded to it. 

“ There must be inhabitants,” said he, “on yonder 
island, for they keep making friendly answers to my flag. 
My boat is finished, and I shall launch her to-day. To- 
morrow, if the weather be clear and mild, I shall cross to 
the opposite shore.” 

Dr. Vail’s boat was so light that a less muscular man 
than he might have borne it on his back, as an Indian 
bears his birch-canoe. 


214 


THE UNDER WORLD. 


215 


To ascertain whether it was water-tight, he put on 
hoard about two hundred and fifty pounds of stone. This 
weight, which was considerably greater than that of his 
body, did not at the end of half an hour develop a leak 
— not even a drop. 

Then carefully unlading his water-proof shallop, he 
made an attempt to step on board. But he was not the 
first boatman whom a shell-boat has suddenly slipped 
from under. This inexperienced kayaker was cast out of 
his kayak, and fell with a splash into the water ; the boat 
drifting away from him to the opposite bank. 

He had no alternative but to swim across after the 
truant, and try again on the other side. 

Barbara, who was a witness of this proceeding, was full 
of merriment at his mishap. 

Regaining his frail craft, he spent the day in careful 
exercise with it ; surprising himself at the facility with 
which he handled his paddle, and at the speed he attained. 

“Ho bird in the air,” said Barbara, “is more grace- 
ful on the wing than your beautiful little ship on the 
wave.” 

“ What shall be her name ? ” asked her proud builder 
and master. 

“Call her the Snowflake,” said Barbara, “for perhaps 
she is the only one I shall ever see.” 

Early the next morning, between dawn and daybreak, 
the whole family came down to the water’s-edge, where 
Hr. Vail, after a leave-taking as formal and affecting as if 
for a voyage round the world, shot away from them with 
surprising speed, and was wafted onward by their waving 
hands — while Beaver kept running along the bank in pur- 
suit of his departing master, barking in expostulation at 
being left behind. 

“Beaver !” cried Barbara, “come back !” 

The dog stopped a moment, looked first at the father, 


216 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


then at the daughter, and perceiving a divided duty, came 
trotting reluctantly back while his heart was at sea. 

“Let us go to the top of the hill,” suggested Mrs. 
Yail, “and watch the boat through the spy-glass.” 

Reaching the flag-staff, Barbara lowered and hoisted the 
flag to her father in continuous salute several times. 

“Is it possible,” asked her mother, with an anxious 
look, “that so small a boat can navigate so great an 
ocean ? Look ! the little thing is now a mere speck shin- 
ing in the sun. May God keep my dear husband in 
safety ! ” 

Jezebel, who stood gazing over the great expanse of 
glittering water at the tiny craft which was growing less 
and less, involuntarily exclaimed, 

“ What’s de good book say ? ‘ Man is a worm ob de 

dust.’ Dere aint much dust out dar in de big water. 
But de Lord hab got his watchful eye on dat precious 
worm.” 

Barbara — mute, wistful, .and expectant — followed the 
dear voyager with her glass — and with her heart’s hopes. 

Suddenly the smoke belched up in rolling masses, white 
and fleecy at the top. 

“The islanders,” said Barbara, “ are 4 preparing to give 
my father a welcome.” 

But Barbara’s conjecture was only a pleasing fancy. 
Her father’s theory concerning the smoke had been wholly 
wrong. The fumes did not rise from the signal-fires of 
a hospitable coast, nor did they bear any salutation of 
welcome from man to man. They were simply clouds of 
sulphurous steam, emitted from one of the many volcanic 
vents through which Nature lets off the internal heats of 
the earth. 

These safety-valves are numerous in the West Indies, 
particularly in the Caribbee Islands. 

These islands, extending in a northern and southern line 


THE UHDEK WOULD. 


217 


for seven hundred miles, consist of many points that all 
jut from one submerged hank or submarine shoal, which, 
lying at no great distance under the water, is full of vol- 
canic heats, and sends up its fires through a series of 
chimneys, small and large, including nearly a dozen active 
volcanoes. 

The island which Rodney Vail had gone forth to seek 
was one of these flues of the internal furnace of the earth ; 
but the little company of spectators by the flag-staff did 
not know or suspect this fact. 

“0 Bel,” cried Mrs. Vail, suddenly putting her hand 
to her head, “I am dizzy;” and she staggered toward 
Jezebel for support ; but the old nurse herself at that 
moment tottered in the same way, and was cast headlong 
to the ground. 

“The sky is falling,” exclaimed Barbara, “the land 
shakes — the world is vanishing away ! ” and she convul- 
sively clasped her arms about the trunk of a tree, as many 
a less terrified Rosalind has done with a gentler embrace. 

“It is an earthquake,” said Mary, who, as soon as she 
comprehended the situation, composed herself into that 
mild courage which had always distinguished her in great 
emergencies. 

The shock had been slight, but startling. Jezebel rose 
to her feet, and said, 

“ It’s de Lord’s han’ a knockin’ agin de ground. Byme- 
by de Lord will come and knock so hard dat he will break 
de whole world to pieces. What’s de good book say ? ‘ De 

hills shall skip like rams, and de little hills like lambs.’” 

The mother and daughter were distressed at the absence 
of their natural protector; though, had he been present, 
he would have been powerless to protect them against such 
a perturbation of Nature. 

“I wonder if Rodney felt it in his boat,” said Mary, 
with an apprehension of calamity to her husband. 


218 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


The three women, as soon as they felt the ground steady 
again under their feet, walked back to the top of the hill 
(from which they had a little way descended) and sought 
through the glass for some trace of the imperiled navigator. 
He was seen in the far distance. He was therefore safe. 

In fact, he knew nothing of the phenomenon which had 
terrified his family. 

The earthquake, which he had crossed without feeling 
it, had diffused its shock through the waves, giving him 
no suspicion of any other commotion than the sea’s cus- 
tomary restlessness. After paddling his kayak for two 
hours, he approached the shore which he sought. Looking 
before him with magnificent expectation, he saw the col- 
umn of smoke growing broader and rising higher. 

“How shall I land?” he thought. “If I attempt to 
shoot through the breakers, they may dash me to pieces. 
I will follow the western coast in search of an inlet.” 

He effected a landing through an open gate of coral reefs 
that formed a lagoon. 

“ Once again,” said he, “ I am on the solid earth ; ” and 
he looked about him with something of the same pride 
that had animated his discovery of the island he had just 
left. 

“Have my friends who lighted the signal seen me? 
Have they followed my course ? Do they know of my 
arrival ? Will they come down to meet me here ? ” 

After asking himself these questions, he waited a few 
moments for the inhabitants to present themselves. Thirst 
seized him. Picking up a sea-shell, he dipped it into a 
shaded spring of water and began to drink. 

“This tastes like sulphur!” he exclaimed, frowning at 
the noisome draught, and throwing away the shell. 

“ To what desolate place have I come ?” he cried. “ Ho 
sign of house or habitant. But whence then the smoke ? 
Who built the fire ? What fuel keeps it burning ? ” 


THE UNDER WORLD. 


219 


A few observations based on geological knowledge con- 
vinced him that Die fire was none other than a jet of yellow 
fume from one of Nature’s altars underground. 

“ Am I baffled again ? ” he cried. “ First the sea ship- 
wrecked me and held me for years a prisoner — then the 
earth denied me a sight of her inhabitants — and now hell 
belches its breath in my face ! ” 

The crater had long ago lost its primeval fire, and could 
now yield only smoke and steam. 

Standing on the grassy rim, Rodney Yail counted three 
orifices in the crater, pouring forth separate volumes of 
sulphurous gas, which united above into one roll or wreath. 
Lumps of lava, probably centuries old, were lying all about 
the island, and constituted Nature’s substitute for stones. 
The soil was so friable that it frequently broke away be- 
neath Dr. Vail’s feet. Fatigue came upon him, due not 
merely to the natural reaction from his exertions, but more 
to the stifling smokiness of the air. He made his way 
down the eastern slope of the hill, and sat in the only 
shade the island afforded — that of the cocoa-nut trees. 

No sooner had he seated himself, than a trembling mo- 
tion passed through the earth beneath him, shaking the 
trees so sensibly that hundreds of their nuts fell around 
him in a shower. 

“An earthquake!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet; 
and a sudden whiteness overspread his face ; for no man is 
so courageous but he will blanch a little when Mother 
Earth herself proves a coward and trembles with fear. He 
started to run toward an open space on the hillside, when 
a second shock made him totter against a tree, to which 
he clung to keep himself from falling. 

At the next moment, he was struck violently on the 
right shoulder by the sharp edge of a falling cocoa-nut — a 
stroke which lamed him as if it had been a blow from a 
spent cannon-ball. 


220 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


A heavy shower of rain followed, and the volcanic 
column mingled with the other clouds, overspreading the 
whole sky with watery smoke. 

A dead calm prevailed, during which the hissing of the 
steam from the rocks, the spattering of the rain on the 
sea, and the heating of the surf on the beach were loud 
and constant. 

Dr. Vail now wished that he had not undertaken his 
voyage. The keen pain in his shoulder, the vague terror 
engendered by the earthquake, the steady rain pouring 
from above, and the wilder storm belching from below 
— all this, coupled with the thought that several miles of 
the dangerous ocean lay between him and all he held dear- 
est in the world, overcame the stout-hearted man and filled 
him with distress. 

“ How shall I get back again ? Can I propel my boat 
with this aching arm ? Ought I to start now or wait ? 
But if I start, a hurricane may smite me on the way ! 0, 

into what strange perils I am cast ! Am I to be forever, 
forever tangled in the toils of fate ? ” 

The strong man chafed like a lion in a net. 

By the time he reached his boat the wind had risen. 
This forbade his embarkation. Within half an hour the 
fickle tempest blew from three different quarters. Then 
suddenly the storm-clouds broke away, the wind lulled, 
the sun shot forth his fiery beams, and the sea which had 
quickly swollen sank as quickly to rest. 

Twice he endeavored to shoot through the breakers but 
was driven back between the coral reefs ; which, had they 
touched his cockle-shell, would have torn it to shreds. 

“ Hardly three hours,” he exclaimed, “are left of the 
daylight ; I must make one more attempt to cross the bar, 
or I shall be caught here all night.” 

Plunging his oar again into the waves, he made a few 
swift strokes, every one of which reacted upon his shoulder 


THE UNDER WORLD. 


221 


with a twinge of pain ; but he shot oyer the roaring bar, 
and was once again on the open sea. 

None of the mad speed of the morning marked his 
homeward course. He did not now expect to coyer the 
distance in two hours — hardly in four. 

The current had a tendency to carry him westward of 
his own island, and he had to struggle hard not to be 
borne away by its powerful flood. 

When he was about midway between the two islands a 
sudden change occurred in the weather ; the air became 
murky and motionless ; a haze overspread the sky ; and, 
at a time of day when coolness should prevail, the heat 
was more oppressive than at noon. An oily stillness 
covered the waves, softening them into a gentle roll. 

Fearing a coming blast. Dr. Vail propelled his craftwith- 
out mercy to his nerves or sinews — his whole body reeking 
with sweat, his garments sticking to his skin, his strong 
chest panting like an athlete in the last rivalry of a race. 

<( One mile more,” he exclaimed, “ and I shall then be 
at the Coromandel’s cove. ” 

The sun set, and the moon rose — both at the same mo- 
ment. 

He had now passed the northern point of the island, 
and by landing here might have saved himself the toil of 
propelling his boat as far southward as where the ship lay, 
but a dangerous barrier of breakers warned him to seek 
no landing-place short of the ship’s roadstead. 

He sped along just outside the line of the surf, and 
watched its white violence at his right hand. Distinctly 
over the breakers, he heard the barking of a dog. Beaver, 
who had espied the returning kayak, was trotting along 
the beach, in company with his master on the water. 

Suddenly a booming sound broke forth from the island, 
and rattled and rolled through the soft air, making the 
glassy ocean shudder with ripples far and near. 


222 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Before Dr. Vail had time to reflect on the cause of this 
cannonade — which jarred the land, the sea, and the sky — 
he noticed in the moonlight that the breakers, which had 
hitherto been running up from the sea to the shore, as 
breakers do, now fled back from the shore to the sea. 

These refluent shallow billows, on reaching the deeper 
water, mingled with it to form one sober wave, which, 
without furious foam, but with tremendous power, rolled 
toward the kayak, lifted it on high, passed under it as 
under a floating feather, and flowed outward a mile at 
sea. 

Then it stopped, turned, gathered to itself a multitude 
of waters, and with a strange roaring rushed back with 
mountainous swell toward the defenceless boat. 

The moving wall of water had meanwhile curled into a 
crest, which, to the dismayed yoyager, seemed about to 
engulf him with instant destruction. 

The imminent wave swept over him with a tempest of 
foam, capsized his little boat, whirled it over and over, 
tore it away from him like the stripping off of a garment 
— and left him a struggling swimmer, clasping his oar 
with desperate hands, as a drowning man grasps a straw. 

At the next moment, he was swept onward beyond the 
beach — hurled up among the trembling trunks of a half- 
submerged grove of cocoa-nut trees — and flung senseless, 
nearly forty yards inland from the customary water-line. 

The ill-fated adventurer — too greatly stunned to be con- 
scious of his misfortune — was left lying on a green hill- 
side — in the soft grass — his eyes closed — his face pallid in 
the moonlight — and his hands still clenching his oar as 
with a death-grip, showing the last hope to which he had 
clung in his struggle for life. 

What was this phenomenon ? — this swift and boisterous 
treachery of a tranquil sea ? 

It was an earthquake of fearful power — one of those 


THE UNDER WORLD. 


223 


great upheavals by which, along tropical sea-coasts, the 
agitated land, moving to and fro, pushes the sea back 
from the shore, and receives the refluent water in one wild 
and awful surge. This retiring and returning flood is 
sometimes of such volume and violence as to overflow the 
tops of trees, and to carry stately frigates up into green 
fields. 

It was on such a billow that Rodney Vail’s cockle-shell 
was caught and crushed. Had the fragile craft been an 
admiral’s flag-ship, its fate could not have been different. 

Nature, without warning to man, and without pity for 
her own fair hills and coasts, had smitten the earth with 
a convulsion that shook the night-dews from every blade 
of grass throughout the Antilles, and that stopped every 
church clock simultaneously from Trinidad to St. Kitts — 
as if to prolong a moment of havoc into an eternity of 
suspense. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH. 

XpARTHQUAKES are of two classes or types. 

-LJJ The first are called by the Spanish Creoles “Trem- 
blores,” or tremors, in which the slight swell or motion of 
the surface does not cast down buildings or endanger life, 
and which, at the changing of the seasons, sometimes 
occur daily, even two or three times a day, for weeks in 
succession. 

The second are called “ Terremotos,” or earthquakes 
proper, — happily not frequent in any country, — beginning 
with loud noises as of heavy wagon- wheels rolling over the 
ground, followed by the opening of seams and fissures, the 
engulfment of rocks and forests, and the ruin of cities 
and towns. 

The tremors, or “ Tremblores,” can be faced and out- 
braved by the courage derived from familiar experience ; 
but the “Terremotos,” or real earthquakes, are beyond all 
reconcilement to the overpowered senses of man, and excel 
all other natural phenomena in oppressing the mind with 
a sense of helplessness and woe. 

Three ground swells in the solid earth, all occurring in 
one brief day, even though not earthquakes proper, were 
enough to inspire Mrs. Vail with a dread of remaining 
on the land. Accordingly, at Barbara’s suggestion, they 
abandoned the house and took refuge on the ship. They 
had a vague idea that the water, being accustomed to 

224 


OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH. 


225 


heavings and swellings of its own, would afford the 
refugees a kindlier asylum than the land. 

“ We shall be out of danger here,” remarked Barbara, 
looking round the cabin wherein all three were re-en- 
sconced in their old sea-faring quarters, “ for this dear 
old ship, which has been an ark of safety to us so long, 
will once more hide us in her heart of oak.” 

The Coromandel, as she lay immured at sundown in 
her land-locked cove between green walls of cocoa-trees, 
could not furnish from her deck a view of the ocean to 
the northward ; so her anxious company were prevented 
from watching Dr. Vail’s homeward, as they had watched 
his outward, course. 

Darkness begets fear, and fear chills the reason. When 
hope is paralyzed, the whole mind is benumbed. Mary 
and Barbara now gloomily convinced themselves that the 
ship partook of the hopelessness of her company, and was 
no real covert or sure defence. They waited in a kind of 
calm dismay. 

“ Where is my dog ? ” suddenly asked Barbara, looking 
round for him in the dusk. “ He came on board with us, 
but has gone off again.” 

Two or three times she mounted the binnacle, and called 
Beaver’s name ; but the dog was neither to be seen nor heard. 

Jezebel was silent and solemn, under a shadowy convic- 
tion that the end of the world was at hand. 

“ How dark it is growing,” said Barbara ; “how short 
the twilight has been ; let us light the cabin-lamp.” 

The familiar swinging-lamp, for the first time since their 
arrival on shore, was now set burning in its accustomed 
place, as in past years at sea. 

Jezebel’s face, which the lamplight strangely illumined, 
gradually assumed a look of uncommon serenity. There 
had been occasions in Jezebel’s life when some high spirit- 
ual thought, working within her mind, had moulded her 


226 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


bronze face into a momentary majesty. Such a moment 
was now winging its shadowy flight across that yenerable 
front. She looked like an aged sybil— an ancient seer. 
She immediately became the chief spirit of the three. 
Mary and Barbara found themselves involuntarily looking 
up to the old Ethiop with the homage and reverence due 
to a superior soul. 

“My chillen,” exclaimed the strange creature, “what’s 
de good book say ? ‘ De great day ob de Lord is near, it 

is near. Dat day is a day ob wrath, a day ob trouble and 
distress, a day ob clouds and tick darkness.’ Yes, my 
cliillen, dat’s de word ob de Lord, spoken by the ’Postle 
Zefiniah. But dat’s not de whole word ob de Lord. No, 
my chillen, when de Lord speaks a powerful word like dat, 
like a rushin’ mighty wind — He den right away speaks a 
sweet and gentle word, like a still small voice. What’s de 
good book say! ‘0 Jerus’lem, Jerus’lem, how often 
would I hab gaddered dy chillen togedder as a hen gadders 
her brood under her wings, and ye would not.’ Dat was 
Jerus’lem. But, my chillen, we ain’t like dem folks ; no, 
we are agwine to let de Lord gadder us togedder under 
His own great and mighty wings.” 

It was at this precise moment, the night having just set 
in, the full moon having just risen, and Bodney Yail in 
his flying kayak having just sprung with fresh energy into 
the last mile of his voyage, — that the first signs appeared 
of the approach of an earthquake which a few minutes 
afterward was to shake every island of the Caribbean 
chain, and especially the little island which the Coro- 
mandel had too blindly chosen for herself from all the 
others in the sea. 

It was heralded to the frightened women in the ship by 
a crashing sound which, as it penetrated the cabin, seemed 
to Barbara to be a clap of thunder made by the earth in- 
stead of the sky. 


OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH. 


227 


“This loud noise/’ said Mrs. Vail, timidly, “is premoni- 
tory of something — I know not what. The elements are at 
war. May God take care of my husband in his fragile craft. ” 

Jezebel rose to her feet, swayed her body to and fro, 
closed her eyes, and exclaimed, with a weird and powerful 
Toice, 

“It is de great and terrible day ob de Lord. What’s de 
good book say ? ‘ De earth shall quake ! — de hebbens shall 
tremble ! De day ob de Lord is great and terrible, and 
who can abide it ? ’ ” 

While Jezebel was yet speaking, the chain-cable by which 
the ship was anchored racked back and forth with a grat- 
ing noise in the iron-clad aperture through which it passed ; 
a great blow seemed to be dealt against the keel, as if 
some Titanic sledge-hammer had smitten it from under 
the earth ; and the three panic-stricken women in the 
ship’s cabin were dashed violently to the floor, where they 
crouched in fear and woe — praying, moaning, and wring- 
ing their hands. 

“Almighty Father,” cried Barbara, “ be merciful ! Leave 
us not to perish.” 

Mary sat clenching her white hands — in agony at her 
husband’s absence and probable destruction. 

“ 0 Rodney, Rodney, where are you ?— Lost ? Killed ? 
Dead ? — 0 my husband ! 0 God ! ” 

In miserable situations, miseries multiply. No sooner 
had the women been thus dashed to the floor than the ship 
suddenly rose, rocked, lurched, and fell on her beam-ends 
— hurling her three occupants down to the starboard side 
— jarring the air into a windy breath that blew out the 
lamp — and setting loose, in the appalling darkness, an 
avalanche of all the cabin furniture and movables, so that 
they slid down into a jumbled heap, sounding as if the 
vessel had been crushed and her timbers were breaking 
and snapping on all sides. 


228 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ 0 heaven ! the ship has capsized and is going to 
pieces ! ” shouted Barbara, lifting her yoice above the din. 
“ Mother, let us run to the deck ! Haste, Bel, quick ! It 
may not be too late to save our lives. ” 

Barbara instantly led the way, groping through the dark- 
ness to find the passage up-stairs. 

“ No,” said her mother in mortal anguish, hut with a 
strange calm, “ I shall not stir from this spot. Let death 
find me here — I am ready and waiting. 0 Barbara, your 
father is dead ! Yes, I know it— I am sure of it ! Then 
let me not survive him a single hour. 0 Rodney, Rodney ! 
my dear husband, you once faced death in this very cabin 
for my sake — I will face it here for yours.” And she sat 
in the darkness burying her head in her hands. 

Barbara, who had now reached the cabin-stairs, was pre- 
vented from hearing her mother’s distressful words by the 
great noise — a noise not only within the cabin, but without 
— for in addition to the interior bedlam of the crackling 
furniture, there was an exterior tumult of rushing waters, 
falling trees, and splitting banks. 

“ Dear lamb,” exclaimed Jezebel to Mary (for the old 
nurse also had remained behind), “what’s de good book 
say? ‘Peace, troubled soul.’ We hab had de troubled 
soul — now let us hab de peace.” 

Mrs. Vail’s conviction of her husband’s death was para- 
mount. The instinct of life had never been strong with 
her ; it was not comparable to her instinct of love ; and 
she was now eager that her life should instantly flee the way 
of her love. 

But Barbara, who was clambering to the deck, seeking 
for an escape, had not yet known either life or love. She 
therefore had no welcome for death. The lion-heart of 
her father, which had been transmitted by inheritance to 
her own breast, was roused within her. She was alert and 
defiant. She determined not to die, if she could live. 


OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH. 


229 


Nature now brought to pass a marvellous surprise. 

“ 0 m j wild brain!” exclaimed Barbara. “Is this a 
delusion or a reality ? Has the earth been turned upside 
down, or have I simply lost my wits ? ” 

For as soon as Barbara had fixed her footing on the deck, 
which was now slanting like a pitched roof, and to which 
she clung as to a housetop, she was amazed to see the quiet 
moonlight revealing everywhere a landscape so peaceful 
and serene, so apparently undisturbed, and so full of in- 
stantaneous comfort to her agonized mind, that she could 
not comprehend the stupendous upheaval of- a few minutes 
before. 

“ Has God wrought some miracle ? ” she cried, perplexed 
yet cheered. “One moment ago all was chaos, and now 
all is calm.” 

Barbara shared the bewilderment common to many per- 
sons who, after passing through a great earthquake, expe- 
rience at the next moment a sense of something miraculous 
in the sudden change from universal’ commotion to uni- 
versal tranquillity; for although the lighter shocks of 
earthquake awaken dread of others to follow, yet a profound 
and terrific concussion, shaking the earth to its centre, 
driving the sea from its shore, and appearing to set the 
sky loose, wreaks its full terror on the mind at once, and 
when it passes, leaves the calm solace that follows great 
pain. 

“ It is over at last,” exclaimed Barbara, drawing a long 
and joyful breath, “and still the earth abides — and still 
we live.” 

The keen-eyed girl, accustomed to looking through dis- 
tances at night, saw at a glance that the ship, though on her 
beam-ends, was still in the same familiar cove, and had 
neither been cast ashore, nor unmoored from her anchorage. 

The simple fact was (though Barbara did not then com- 
prehend it) that the bottom of the cove had been upheaved 


230 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


about seven feet, and its reservoir of water been emptied 
with a rushing noise into the sea — or so nearly emptied 
that what was left was not deep enough to float the ship, 
which consequently had fallen over on her beam-ends. 

Barbara turned round, expecting to find her mother 
and Jezebel at hand. 

Discovering that they had not followed her to the deck, 
she picked her way down the declivitous staircase into the 
cabin, to report to their bewildered minds that the terrible 
convulsion was overpast and their peril at an end. 

“ But where is your father ? ” asked his agonized wife. 

“ He is on the other island,” replied Barbara, “ safe 
with his new-found friends for Barbara’s anxiety, strange 
to say, was less for her father than for her dog. 

“Now, my dear daughter, climb up-stairs again, and see 
whether there is any sign of your father’s arrival.” 

“ Mother dear,” replied Barbara, “ father certainly has 
not left the other island. Having found friends there, 
why should he leave them so soon ? Besides, he must have 
felt the shocks of this morning, and these have warned him 
against returning to-day in his gossamer boat.” 

Barbara re-ascended to the deck to look, not for her 
father, but for her dog. 

“Hark !” she exclaimed, putting her hand to her ear, 
and listening to a far-off noise ; it was a dog’s bark ; and 
the sound seemed full of distress. 

“ Beaver ! ” shouted Barbara, at the top of her voice ; 
and she waited for him to obey her call ; but he did not 
appear. 

“ Beaver ! ” she cried again and again ; but he failed to 
approach. 

“My dog,” thought Barbara, “must be in some misery 
— he howls pitifully as if hurt. What if some accident 
has befallen him ? Any little bruise would now kill him 
— he is so old. I must go after him at once.” 


OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH. 


231 


Hastening then into the cabin for her shawl and hat, 
she announced Beaver’s distress, and her determination 
to go to his rescue. 

Her mother attempted to dissuade her, but Barbara 
would l^ten to no expostulation. 

“No,” said she, “Beaver would never hark and moan 
in that sorrowful way unless he were suffering. He is 
appealing to me to come to him, and I am going. My 
dog leaped after me when I was drowning, and I must 
hasten to my dog now that he is hurt.” 

“ Do you see any sign of your father ?” asked Mary. 

“No,” replied Barbara, “and I am sure that he has 
not returned.” 

At that moment the thought crossed Barbara’s mind — 
How should she get ashore ? Was not the ferry destroyed ? 
Or, if not, would the ropes and pulleys still work ? Could 
she pull herself along in the basket ? 

She made an examination. Yes, the ferry-ropes were 
still there. Nothing had been injured. The ferry was 
easier than ever — at least, easier from ship to shore, for 
the ship now lay so high in the air that the ferry-basket, 
in going shoreward, ran down hill. 

The moment she landed and set out on her journey, 
her heart failed her. She was daunted, and shrank from 
going forward. Nevertheless she.was distressed concerning 
her dog — her life-long companion — her rescuer from 
drowning — and now, in his old age, her daily care. 

Nothing but some strong impulse of duty, like that 
which now animated Barbara in Beaver’s behalf, could 
have overcome the fear which struck its chills and tremors 
into her soul. 

She was alone— at night— walking over ground that had 
just been rent asunder — picking her dismal way among 
fallen trees— her timid heart all the while quaking within her 
as the great earth’s had just done in its own quivering breast. 


232 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


She stopped two or three times to turn back, but always 
compelled herself forward. Her fears multiplied with her 
efforts to repress them. Her life, she felt, was in jeopardy 
in that treacherous place. Was it not her real duty, 
therefore, to turn back — her duty to herself ancj* to her 
mother ? Ho, she must go forward. Everybody was now 
safe but Beaver — he too mast be saved. 

On she went, guided by the dog’s pathetic cry — past 
the great cactus on the rock, past the mango-tree, past 
the plantains, past the wild cinnamons — straight toward 
the sensitive mimosas that lay outspread before her in the 
moonlight. 

She expected to see them shrink again at her touch ; 
but a ruder touch than hers had already smitten them into 
abjectness ; and their leaves, as she drew nigh, lay crouch- 
ing together, paralyzed. 

The moonlight bewildered her. It makes the most 
familiar region a strange land. It changed to Barbara’s 
eyes the whole face of the island. 

“What a long walk,” said she. “It never seemed to 
me so long before. How far Beaver must have strayed ! 
0 I wish he had gone with my father to the other island. 
Dear father, the seas for the first time roll between us 
to-night.' We are separated as never before. But you are 
happy among your new friends.” 

Barbara, more hopeful than her mother, still dwelt in 
the unshaken conviction of her father’s safe arrival at the 
other island, where she pictured his warm welcome by the 
glad inhabitants who had answered his signal, and among 
whom he was tarrying till a safer time for return. 

Reasoning in this way, the daughter had suffered no 
pang of anxiety on account of her father’s absence. 

What then was her surprise, her dismay, her anguish, 
when, on approaching a high bank from which the dog’s 
bark seemed to proceed, Barbara caught a glimpse of 


OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH. 


233 


Beaver, standing there in the clear moonlight over her 
father’s prostrate and deathly form ! 

The girl leaped forward and bent down to the senseless 
man, who lay stark and stiff. “ Can it be ? No,— no,— 
no ! Dead ? What, my father dead ?— 0 God ! 0 

God ! ” 

The tropical dew— which was falling plentifully, as if 
heaven were making haste to shed its healing on the bruised 
and broken earth — had already moistened his upturned 
face and brow. 

“ These are cold beads of sweat,” she cried, noticing the 
wet drops on his forehead ; “ they are death-damps — I 
have heard how they settle on dead men’s faces ! 0 he is 
dead ! — he is dead ! ” 

One loud cry of agony burst from her lips, and she 
threw herself on his lifeless body. 

“No!” she exclaimed, feeling the movement of his 
heaving chest, “he breathes! — he is alive! 0 God! 
thanks, praise, glory be to Thy great goodness — Thy 
tender mercy ! ” 

Barbara’s heart leaped — her pulse danced — her face shone 
with sudden love, joy, and gratitude. 

“ 0 my father ! speak to me ! I am your daughter. 
Say just one word. 0 speak, speak ! ” 

IJnable to evoke from him a reply, she was seized with an 
apprehension that though he might be alive, yet his life 
was perhaps ebbing away, and he would never speak again. 

“ 0 how can I restore him ? What will bring back the 
light and life into his dear, closed eyes ? ” 

First of all she deftly released from his grasp the clenched 
oar, and laid it down beside him in the grass — Beaver 
straightway running his wise nose up and down the length 
of it, as if wondering whether he had heretofore failed to 
detect in this piece of wood some living enemy that ought 
to be now bitten to death. 


234 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Barbara then rubbed her father’s hands, stroked his fore- 
head, kissed his cheeks, and called his name — but all for 
nought ; for although he lay breathing more and more 
vitally, yet he did not awake. 

He moaned and sighed. He seemed trying to say some- 
thing in his sleep. Again and again he renewed the effort, 
drawing his brows together, clasping his hands in an anguish 
so dumb that its very speechlessness was itself a speech. 

The moon was shining full upon him, and revealed on 
his countenance an expression pitiful in the extreme — so 
full of misery that Barbara wept to behold it. 

She was powerless to relieve her father’s mute and writh- 
ing agony, and this produced a new agony of her own. 

At length he opened his lips and uttered the word — 

“ Mary ! ” 

His daughter replied, 

“It is not my mother — it is I, Barbara.” 

“ 0 Mary ! ” said the struggling voice, with a moan, 
“ the ship is — on fire — struck by lightning — arise — I — will 
save you — 0 God, dead ? — no, Mary, darling, do not die — 
you live, you live — 0 Mary, — my wife, my wife !” 

His paroxysm of feeling then overcame him, and he 
awoke. 

“ Where am I ?” he asked. “ And my boat — where is 
it?” 

Before his daughter could summon words to reply, his 
awakened faculties sprang into their complete intelligence, 
and he rose to his feet. 

“ Am I able to stand ? ” he asked. “Have I any broken 
bones ? Look at me — do you see any gash ? any bruise ? 
any trickling blood ?” 

“Ho, dear darling father, you are safe and sound.” 

“ My child,” said he, clasping her to his breast, “ I was 
overboard ! 0 it was a fearful wave ! How have I escaped 
alive ? But what brings you here, my daughter ? Has 


OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH. 235 

any calamity befallen the family ? Your mother — she is 
— alive ? — and — not harmed ? ” 

“0 yes, yes/’ cried Barbara. “ We are all saved.” 

“ Saved ? Saved from what ? Has there been danger ? 
Hot to Mary ? Saved ? Tell me all.” 

“ There has been a fearful earthquake,” Barbara replied, 
“but we have all escaped — not a hair of our heads is 
harmed.” 

Dr. Vail now for the first moment comprehended the 
convulsion which had caught him in its whirling wave 
and swept him as through a maelstrom to the shore. 

“Father, dear, do not try to walk yet. Sit here on 
this low stone. Recover your strength.” 

He obeyed, taking a seat, while the old dog expressed 
many dog-like congratulations on his master’s recovery, 
and Barbara sat on the stone beside her father, stroking 
his hand. 

After a few moments. Dr. Vail rose, picked up his oar- 
blade, and holding it in one hand for a staff of support while 
Barbara clasped the other to lead him forward, set out on 
a slow walk toward the ship. 

“ I wonder if any trace is left of my kayak ? ” said he, 
looking about him on his way for some shred of his ship- 
wrecked Esquimau craft ; but Barbara’s Snow Flake had 
melted in the sea. 

Dr. Vail, instead of finding any fragment of his Green- 
land cockle-shell, came upon a ship’s pinnace — lying bottom 
upward — high and dry on a green hill — keel and planks 
badly broken — and evidently a wreck of that same night. 

“ What is it ? ” exclaimed Barbara, starting back from 
the strange, black object as if it were some living animal — 
for she had never seen a ship’s boat except the canvas-clad 
shell which her father had used at sea. 

“It is a pinnace,” said he, “broken loose from some 
passing ship, and drifted ashore. During the twilight I 


236 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


thought I saw a steamer passing behind the northern end of 
the island to the westward.” 

Dr. Vail drew a long breath, such as accompanies a deep 
thought. 

“ Look ! ” exclaimed Barbara, “ here are letters on the 
boat — they are upside down — half hid in the grass.” 

Dr. Vail, with Barbara’s assistance, took hold of the 
gunwale, and turned the raven-colored wreck right side 
up, so that her name, which was in small gilt letters on her 
bow, now caught a sudden silvering from the moon, and 
revealed the burnished and prophetic words — 

Good Hope. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


HOPE DEFERRED. 


HIS unforeseen calamity to the Coromandel,” ex- 



-L claimed her master, feeling a pang in his heart’s 
core as he surveyed the deck the next morning, “is like a 
sudden death in the family. There is no hope of the 
old hulk floating again. Here she must lie — grounded in 
this shallow brook forever. How often on the wide ocean 
I used to think that my little company would die within 
these wooden walls, and their bodies be borne about in this 
drifting sepulchre ! But the Coromandel has found her own 
grave before making ours. 0 strange caprice of fate, that a 
ship which has outlived the lightnings and tempests of two 
hemispheres should be wrecked in a quiet harbor at last ! ” 

The family — since they could not dwell in the capsized 
craft, any more than they could have dwelt on the side of a 
precipitous rock — returned to Fran<jois Garcelon’s house 
on the shore. 

“ This house,” said Mary, <e which we thought to be un- 
safe, has not been harmed ; and yet the ship, which was 
to have been our refuge, has gone to wreck.” 

After the family’s removal to the house, Dr. Yail and 
Barbara made a hasty tour of observation through the 
stricken island. 

The great sea-wave, caused by the earthquake, had risen 
in various places to unequal heights along the banks and 
beach, wreathing the whole sea-front with an irregular 


237 


238 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


winrow of such waifs and fragments as ordinarily mark the 
water-line of a sea-coast. The old fringe of bleaching sea- 
weeds had changed its place and risen higher. Fishes had 
been cast np into the holes of high rocks ; and here and 
there a frightened fin was still splashing in some accidental 
basin left full of water by the retiring flood. The sand, in 
spots, had been swept away, disclosing unsuspected rocks 
beneath. The skeleton of the century-old wreck, instead 
of being further unearthed, was buried deeper than ever 
in its sandy grave. Fallen cocoa-nuts, pods of mimosas, 
plantain-leaves, wilted orchids, and many broken branches 
and blooms, of all kinds and colors, strewed the ground. 
Stubborn trees and shrubs, over whose tops the last night’s 
briny wave had passed, now showed their leaves sprinkled 
with salt, through the alchemy of the morning sun. 

Faint snappings and crackings were heard in the ground 
— not the opening of new fissures, but the closing of old. 
Wherever the crust had been thrown up beyond its former 
level, and wherever the dip of the rocks had been changed 
— there a slow, steady, murmurous progress of Nature had 
begun for the recovery of her former planes and angles. 
The upheaved coral-reefs, unable to maintain their heavy 
weight at their now unnatural height, were already (though 
imperceptibly) sinking to their yesterday’s foundations. 
The half-toppled tree-trunks were striving to regain their 
lost rectitude. The bottom of the cove was stealthily 
gravitating to its original depth. 

This motion pervaded the whole island, and had been 
several hours in progress before Dr. Vail detected it, for 
it was like the creeping of a shadow on its dial. 

This tendency of the earth to restore its disturbed crust 
to its previous form has had many precedents in Nature. 
It was by just such a motion that the Isle of Sabrina, after 
being thrown up volcanically in the open sea off the Azores 
in 1811, gradually went down again, and disappeared in 


HOPE DEFERRED. 


239 


the deep whence it came. It was by a similar evanishment 
that Graham’s Island, which reared itself suddenly in the 
Mediterranean in 1832, took a slow and silent way out of 
existence. It was by the same process that several new 
coral-reefs, sand-shoals, and dangerous hanks, which arose 
to vex the Caribbean Sea during the earthquake which 
overtook Dr. Yail, were immediately bidden by nature to 
draw their audacious heads down again under the waves. 
It was during this general retrogression that Dr. Vail’s 
island, after swelling upward into a partial distortion of 
its surface, had already begun, without a moment’s delay, 
to resume its normal shape ; — the upheaved coast settling 
toward its ancient level ; the slanting cocoa-palms straight- 
ening to their primeval perpendiculars ; the channel of the 
cove deepening again to navigable fathoms ; and the 
careened Coromandel leisurely tending toward an even 
keel and level deck. 

The ship, which on Tuesday night Dr. Vail thought to 
be stranded forever, was on the following Saturday morn- 
ing as freely afloat as if she had never been aground. 

Meanwhile, for three nights in succession, the signal-fire 
was lighted on the hill-top ; but, as no shipwrecked sailor 
from the Good Hope reported himself in response to it, 
and as a number of foolish little snipe every night flew like 
midges into the flames, and left their tiny charred bodies 
to draw tears from Barbara’s eyes the next morning — the 
tender-hearted maiden begged her father to desist from 
re-kindling a blaze which thus, instead of succoring the 
distressed, only martyred the innocent. 

Day after day passed, bringing no claimants for the 
Good Hope ; and though an occasional ship gleamed in the 
blue distance, yet these hurrying merchantmen, taking the 
shortest road to market, never approached near enough to 
this out-of-the-way island to see Rodney Vail’s signal, or 
at least to understand its petition and appeal. 


240 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


As Nature quickly recovers from a great shock, so also 
does Human Nature ; and as the island quickly rallied 
from, the earthquake, so did the little family who now 
dwelt in calm repose on its recently perturbed soil. The 
human heart has a strange knack of making its past perils 
augment its present peace. An unwonted cheeriness per- 
vaded the little group, who, having been miraculously 
preserved from death, now more than ever appreciated the 
blessing of life. 

Jezebel, who was the calmest of all, felt a quiet disap- 
pointment that the earthquake had not fulfilled her predic- 
tion, and had not proved to be the end of the world. She 
still believed it to be a forerunner of that end. She could 
not help thinking that the recent convulsion — so unlike 
anything in her former experience ; so utterly (as she sup- 
posed) out of the course of nature, and so wonderfully in 
the line of Scriptural prophecies, — was in very truth the 
great and terrible day of the Lord, wherein the framework 
of the world would be consumed by “the spirit of His 
breath.” The good book, as she interpreted it, vividly 
foreshadowed a fiery dissolution of all sublunary things. 
Hour after hour she would picture to her imagination how 
the “ elements would melt with fervent heat ; ” how “ the 
earth and the works that are therein would be burned up ; 99 
and how the Lord would come “ in clouds and with great 
glory.” 

Furthermore, not only Jezebel’s picturesque interpreta- 
tion of the Scripture, but her extreme age, led her now to 
ponder on the Great Hereafter. One’s own life is apt to 
be, to one’s own thought, the measure also of the world’s 
appointed span. Old Bel knew that the world was soon 
to end, if not for others, at least for her. 

“Yes, my chillen,” said she, “ de time is short. What’s 
de good book say ? ‘ Yet once more. Now dis word— yet 
once more— signifieth de removal ob de tings which are 


HOPE DEFERRED. 


241 


shaken, dat de tings which cannot be shaken may remain.’ 
Now what tings hab been shaken ? Why, de wilderness 
ob dis world — wid all its trees and rocks ; dese hab been 
wofully shaken. But what place cannot be shaken ? Why, 
de Ian’ what floweth wid milk and honey. Dat lan’ cannot 
be shaken. ’Cause de milk and honey would be spilt. So 
dat lan’, like de word of de Lord, abides forever.” 

A strange quickening of the spiritual nature is often- 
times vouchsafed to the aged, as if to prepare them right 
royally for their exchange of worlds. Such an experience 
was given to Jezebel — falling on her like the dew on Mount 
Hermon. Her spirit was daily growing more solemn and 
serene; chastening her habitual jocularity into a quiet 
fervor of thought and word ; pervading her affection for 
Barbara with an inexpressible tenderness ; and even miti- 
gating toward Beaver the buzzing criticisms which, on the 
mid-ocean, she formerly furnished to that dog as his only 
swarm of flies. 

Dr. Vail in his outlook toward the future took a less 
mystical and more practical view — including a plan for a 
new kayak, and a series of voyages from island to island 
in search of an inhabited coast. 

But this project was suddenly frustrated by an unfore- 
seen event. The energetic man, partly through the shock 
occasioned by his fearful experience in the raging flood, 
and partly by the humid atmosphere occasioned by the 
steady rains which were now fulfilling the watery almanac 
for June and July, fell ill of a fever, and was bound a cap- 
tive to his bed. 

“ Mary,” he murmured, “of all times in my life when 
I least could be patient under sickness, that time is now. 
Our fellow-men dwell only a few leagues from us — just a 
day’s sail ! — I know it, I feel it — and yet I am now suddenly 
prevented from going forward to clasp their hands. How 
true it is that 


242 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ * To be weak is to be miserable.’ ” 

Barbara, during Dr. Vail’s tedious illness, became the 
master-spirit of the family. She took her father’s place 
in all out-door duties : — visiting the ship daily ; watching 
the cans of provisions for signs of mildew, and oiling the 
rusfcy spots ; trying the pumps as regularly as at 6ea ; air- 
ing the cabin, forecastle, and hold; mending every break- 
age in the ferry-basket ; and supervising the whole ship as 
an admiral his frigate. Every morning she hoisted the 
flag on the liill-top, and with her spy-glass scanned 
the horizon. She gathered fresh fruits for the family 
daily. Moreover, she took constant care of Beaver, who 
sometimes needed as much nursing as her prostrate father. 
And in doing all these duties, she rapidly showed how re- 
sponsibility, when laid unexpectedly on a young woman, 
contributes quickly to discipline her mind, to develop her 
character, and to beautify her face. 

J ezebel had always been content with Barbara’s long ex- 
ile at sea. The old sibyl’s faith had never wavered that 
Divine Providence had planned this strange life for the 
pure maiden to a holy end ; that is, had secluded her from 
the world in order to keep her untainted by its blots and 
blights. The pious nurse, in watching the increasing 
sweetness of the grave girl’s spirit, was satisfied that Provi- 
dence had seen the end from the beginning, and had chosen 
for Barbara better than her parents themselves could have 
chosen for their child. 

“Yes,” thought Bel, “de great commandment ob de 
Lord am fulfilled. ‘ Little chillen keep yourselves unspot- 
ted ob de world.’ Dat’s de beginnin’ — now what’s de end- 
in’? What’s de good book say? ‘Dou art all fair, my 
love, dar is no spot in dee!’ Yes, dat’s what Barbara is — 
fair and widout spot!” 

Barbara, meanwhile, was quite unconscious of her saint- 


HOPE DEFERRED. 


243 


hood, hut appeared to herself a. restless, yearning, wistful 
prisoner, whose partial contentment with her dungeon was 
based on her lively hope of a speedy deliverance from it. 

“My child,” said her father, “happiness depends on 
the mind, not on the estate. It is an inward quality, not 
an outward condition. The Arab dwells in his wretched 
tent in the desert, yet is happy ; but the king in his palace, 
carousing at his banquet-table, is often the most miserable 
of men. My darling, you are restless, but I hope not 
wretched.” 

“ Father dear,” replied Barbara, “ I am grateful to have 
escaped the sea, and found the shore. True, our little 
island is not the Happy Valley which Basselas sought, and 
which I fondly hoped to find. Hours of misery I have 
had in this place. Can I ever forget my first horrible 
night in the sepulchre ? Can I ever forget the earth- 
quake, and the anguish it brought to us all ? Nevertheless, 
the land is better than the sea, and a house is better than 
a ship. So, except for my longings to see the world — 
longings which I cannot repress — longings which will take 
no content — except for these I am happy. So are we all. We 
suffer neither hunger nor thirst. Nor are we chained like 
Prometheus to our few little rocks to be devoured here by 
vultures. We are comfortable prisoners, who have learned 
how to endure captivity. Then, too, my dear father, you 
have been ill, but are getting well — and this is gladness 
enough for me.” 

Barbara’s spirit was bright, yet not without a shade; 
her sky had ceased to be full of tempests, yet carried 
clouds ; she no longer despaired, yet remained dissatis- 
fied. 

“What if,” asked her father, testing her fortitude, 
“what if circumstances should compel us to remain on this 
isle for the rest of our lives ? — to grow old here like Francis 
Garcelon ? Does it not sadden you to think of that grey- 


244 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


bearded hermit wasting away in this wilderness ? He has 
left us heirs of his goods — what if he should leave us heirs 
also of his fate ?” 

“Father,” observed Barbara, thoughtfully, “I have 
made a discovery. I have discovered an eighth day of the 
week. The whole seven may be evil, but the eighth will 
be good. The eighth day of the week is To-Morrow. It is 
the day of our redemption.” 

Dr. Yail, even in his prostration, was a man in whom the 
steel-spring had not snapped. There are wise master- 
builders of life, and architects of hope, who can throw a 
solid arch from the present forward into the future, as if 
transmuting a rainbow into iron and stone. Rodney Yail 
was among these cunning masons. He never once, even 
to his own secret thoughts, admitted that an unbridged 
gulf could exist forever between his little family and the 
world. 

Meanwhile, Barbara’s increased duties and responsibili- 
ties supplied to her, more and more, a wholesome elixir of 
life. Toil, study, care, vigil, business, — something to do ; 
this is the mind’s surest panacea for peace. A sorrowing 
heart, lying at rest in its own languor and ennui, will cor- 
rode inwardly from an accumulated rust of unshed tears. 
Barbara, who wisely plunged into self-forgetful toils, began 
to make studies of the island and its tropic treasures. She 
fell in love with the sea-girt spot, as if she had been born 
on it. Indeed, her birth-place was on it, for she was born 
on the ship, and the ship was now part of the isle. As 
Barbara knew every plank of the one, so she soon knew 
every rood of the other. 

All her first awkwardness of step she soon overcame, and 
trod the virgin soil with virgin feet as blithely as a High- 
land lassie trips along her native moors. 

The rain was no hindrance to Barbara’s expeditions, for 
out. of some thin water-proof fabrics on the ship, after a 


HOPE DEFERRED.' 


245 


shapely pattern cut by her mother, she made for herself a 
cloak which no water-drop could trickle through. Clothed 
with this armor against the arrowy rain, it was her delight 
to go out and be pelted by the showers. 

“ The gray gulls and I,” she gayly exclaimed, “ are birds 
of a feather.” 

But eyen in the rainy season, it did not rain every hour — 
hardly every day. There was sunshine frequently, even 
though not long at a time. Both in rain and sunshine, 
Barbara was out of doors, roaming like one of the dwarfed 
wild goats of which a few still remained among the rocks 
at the north end of the isle. 

During her father’s illness, she frequently brought an 
armful of flowers and strewed them on his bed, to be told 
their names and pretty tricks of growth and bloom. 

The little wild garden gave so much scope to her rest- 
lessness ; it spread so rich a rambling-ground under her 
feet ; it accosted her with so many appeals both to her eyes 
and ears ; it yielded her so delicious a fatigue by day, and 
so sweet a sleep at night — that she gradually expelled her 
previous bad opinion of the world as a place of skulls. 

It was noticed by her parents that the watery atmosphere 
had taken off the sunburn from her cheeks, so that she 
ceased to be any longer a nut-brown maid. 

The bonny Barbara, with a figure just above the medium 
height, lithe, compact, and sinewy, was as agile as a squir- 
rel, and could leap, climb, chase down her frolicsome flock 
of pigmy goats, wrestle with them in gay gambols, and 
catch up the kicking kids in her conquering arms. 

She was a true blonde. Her hair had the color of bearded 
wheat, and looked at a distance as if she were a reaper car. 
rving her sheaves twisted about her head and trailing down 
her back. These tresses, thick and wavy, con stantly changed 
their tint from bright to brighter, according as she passed 
from shade to sunshine. Under the sun’s actual rays this 


246 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


liair gave back gold for gold. A few fringes, escaping 
from the band, strayed down her temples, wandering like 
Milton’s “ gadding vine.” Whenever she let loose her hair 
over her shoulders, it covered her like a gay cloak, or like 
the pontiff’s gilded vestment when he kneels at the altar 
of Peter’s. The ends of the tresses were bleached into 
a lighter hue than that of the thicker mass — like a Venetian 
woman’s hair under an Italian sky. 

Barbara’s face was Greek in outline, the forehead and 
nose making but slight departure from one continuous 
mould. Her eyes were large and dark-blue, as if borrow- 
ing their deep color from the double azure of sea and sky. 
Her neck was a comely column. Her head was loftily 
poised, indicating spirited behavior and native pride ; and 
when she ran a race in the wind’s eye, the light-fingered 
breezes would pick open her hair-braids, shake them loose, 
and send them flying backward like flames from a torch. 

This unique maid — unique as her destiny — knew but 
one ache or pain ; and this was the restless beating of a 
heart baffled in its quest for life, love, and peace. 

Young as she was, she had now arrived at those years 
which bring the most chaotic upheavals of the human 
heart — the most bewildering conflicts that shake the breast 
of man or woman. The narrow belt between sixteen and 
twenty is the tropical zone, if not of human life, at least 
of human love. During this period the heart’s most 
tumultuous emotions arise. Everything before this is 
temperate and need not be curbed ; everything after it is 
comparatively safe, through the warnings of past experi- 
ence ; but everything in it is tossed and jarred as with 
tempest and earthquake. 

One day, sitting in a favorite haunt among the rocks, 
reading the life of Zenobia, Barbara flung down the old 
magazine that contained it, and said to herself, 

“ I am always reading about other women. But am not 


HOPE DEFERRED. 


247 


I also a woman ? What woman, then, am/f Who shall 
tell me something of my own self ? ” 

She laid her finger against her forehead, as if question- 
ing the subtile autobiographer within for information 
concerning her own identity. 

“ Alas, I know not : I, who am a stranger to the "V|orld, 
am a stranger also to myself.” 

The eager-minded maid trailed her tresses through her 
hand, and after pensively surveying them for a moment, 
exclaimed, “ I am a yellow-winged insect that happens to 
be myself instead of some other moth. If it were another, 
I should know the creature better. But since it is myself, 
it is a puzzle to me. Is there any such thing as self- 
knowledge ? Then from what book may I learn it ? ” 

Barbara, in finding daily novelties in Nature, found 
none so marvelous or mysterious as herself. She knew 
how to cut the rind of the milk-tree for the white secret 
of its juice ; she taught the tiny fishes in the cove to eat 
sweet morsels from her hands ; she lured the crabs to con- 
fess the process of their bursting shells ; she questioned 
the beetles how they rolled the stone of Sisyphus without 
letting it tumble down ; she permitted the little spiteful 
scorpions to snap at the chiding forefinger which she 
pointed at them in rebuke of their ill-nature ; she hung 
over the humming-birds as these did over the cactus- 
flowers ; she held discourse with the smooth-necked 
iguana ; she caught the papilio butterfly and let him go 
again for the joy of beholding him regain his liberty ; — 
all these living creatures Barbara saw and studied ; — and 
she then reflected that she herself was simply one addi- 
tional creature among them, perhaps a good deal like 
them, and must be put into the same category with them 
— all being equal parts of Nature’s common plan, and busy 
figures in her general scene. 

In proportion as she sharpened her scrutiny into the 


248 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


earth’s outward orb, she deepened her probings, into her 
heart’s inmost self. 

The proper study of womankind is woman. 

In this recondite lore, Barbara found her chief teacher 
and pupil, her best problem and example — all in her 
simple and ignorant self. 

“ This little book,” said she, picking up again the drop- 
ped magazine, “ tells me that Zeno, when asked, ‘ What 
is life?’ replied, ‘Inquire of the dead.’ But he gave 
that answer to those who dwelt in the liying world, and 
who might well appeal from life to death. But I have not 
yet lived among the living. When I ask. What is life ? — 
I want to go first to the living before I am sent to the 
dead. But, 0 is it possible that I am to catch my first 
glimpse of mankind, not among their living faces, but 
among their departed shades ? Am I to make my exit 
from the world before I have made my entrance into it ? 
No, it cannot be, — I invoke heaven’s justice ! If Divine 
Providence, and not chance, or fate, rules the universe, 
how can I be left banished forever from the human 
family ? No, my captivity must one day end — my chain 
shall surely be broken — my liberty is yet to come.” 


CHAPTER XVHI. 


tfARCISSA. 

B ARBARA sometimes resorted to a cunning stratagem 
as a means of escape from her self-consciousness, and 
from the morbid misery that attended it. She would bor- 
row her mother’s hand-glass — a little oval piece of French 
plate, bound in a black-walnut rim. Carrying this glass 
with her into the woods, or by the sea, or among the rocks, 
the beautiful maid would sit and scrutinize herself in the 
magical mirror — a mirror made magical by the face re- 
flected in it. 

Barbara consulted this glass not from vanity — a desire 
to see her own face ; but from sympathy — a desire to see 
another’s. 

Vanity is not a wild-flower, but a garden-vine ; it grows 
not to please God, but men ; it plants itself where there 
are eyes to gaze at it ; and as Barbara’s world was devoid 
of the common multitude of human spectators, her heart 
had not yet ripened its native seeds (and weeds) of vain 
display. 

Barbara went to the glass to find in it, not herself, but 
a companion. The fair creature who dwelt in Barbara’s 
mirror was invested with a personality distinct from the 
gazer’s own. The glass-holder’s fancy had long ago pre- 
tended that this other person was her sister. Barbara had 
conferred on this evanescent twin the name Narcissa — bor- 

249 


250 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


rowed from the fable of Narcissus, who contemplated his 
image in a glassy brook. 

If the intimacy between Barbara and her sister Nar- 
cissa should appear suspiciously great, let no cynical critic 
of human nature assign it to a beautiful woman’s devotion 
to her own looks. Gazing modestly at her innocent hand- 
glass, Barbara was altogether too ignorant of life to know 
how 

“One good custom could corrupt the ’world,” 

and she little dreamed that in the corrupted world for 
which she breathed forth sighing breaths against her glass, 
no fair woman ever escapes the suspicion of a little idola- 
try toward her sister Nareissa. 

Barbara, to make the counterfeit presentment fair and 
fascinating, would sometimes prepare for her interviews 
by decorating herself with chaplets of leaves, grasses, and 
flowers. Barbara would then talk to Narcissa with vary- 
ing expressions of countenance — now smiling, now frown- 
ing, now making grotesque faces like a coy actress feigning 
a part ; in every way rendering her twin companion — her 
other self — as charming and winsome as possible. 

The more beautiful Narcissa appeared, the better Barbara 
liked her society. 

Sometimes the image-making maiden would pretend to 
he neither herself nor Narcissa ; but, putting herself out- 
side of both, would question one concerning the other. 

“Narcissa, my darling,” she would say, “ when have 
you seen Barbara ? ” 

“ 0, I see her every day.” 

“ What does she look like ? ” 

“ She looks like you.” 

“ 0, dear ! I am no wiser now than before. Tell me 
something else about her. What is her temper ? 

“ Well, my dear, I must call it peevish and fretful.” 


NAKCISSA. 251 

“Narcissa, what can he the trouble on Barbara’s 
mind?” 

“Well, it is easily told.” 

“ Then please tell me, Narcissa.” 

“No, I must not.” 

“ Why not ? ” 

“ Because it is a great secret.” 

“ 0 Narcissa, you may tell it to me — just to me.” 

“Will you promise me, dearest, if I tell it to you, that 
you will never mention it to anybody else ? ” 

“Yes, Narcissa, I promise.” 

“ Well, then, listen, — Barbara is in love !” 

“But, dear Narcissa, is not love a happy thing? If, 
then, Barbara is in love, why should she not be happy ? 
But you know she is wretched.” 

“ Ah, my dear, that also is easily explained. Barbara 
is in love, but has no lover. And that is enough to make 
any woman miserable. Is it not?” 

In this strain, or some other like it, Barbara would run 
on by the hour, in talks with Narcissa. 

Barbara continued also her girlish habit of writing let- 
ters to real or imaginary persons, and of receiving pre- 
tended answers. In this way she held quaint exchanges 
with supposed correspondents in all parts of the world. 
The most frequent of these feigned and far-off writers was 
Lucy Wilmerding, to whom Barbara would address a brief 
letter of inquiry concerning the sights to be seen in Paris 
or Rome, and for a reply would take one of Lucy’s old 
letters and read it as if just received by foreign mail. 

“My dear Narcissa,” said she, one day, “Barbara has 
a question for you.” 

“What is it?” 

“Narcissa, Barbara wants to know if you think she 
could ever possibly be a princess ? ” 

“Well,” replied Narcissa, “she might be; that is, if 


252 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


the Prince should come to offer her his hand and a 
coronet.” 

“ But, Narcissa, will he ever come ? 99 

“Ah, my dear, I don’t know.” 

“ Dear Narcissa, how can Barbara wait forever ? She 
will lose her patience and break her heart.” 

“Tell Barbara,” replied Narcissa, “to remember how 
Cinderella sat forlorn in the ashes, and yet the glass slip- 
per was brought to her at last.” 

“Alas, dear Narcissa, they who expect to walk in 
glass slippers may find themselves shod with brittle 
hopes. ” 

“All hopes,” responded Narcissa, “ must be of glass, I 
think ; for they are easily — 0, so easily shivered and 
shattered.” 

“Dear Narcissa, is it so ? — then what is to become of 
poor Barbara’s hopes, that are all afloat on the sea in little 
fragile glass ships ? ” 

“ My dear,” exclaimed Narcissa, “ what a foolish crea- 
ture Barbara has grown to be ! Age does not improve her. 
When she was a child, she was a sunbeam all the day long. 
Now she is full of clouds and gloom. Her bosom seems 
to be filled with nothing but heart-ache.” 

“Ah, Narcissa, did you ever see a young man ?” 

“No.” 

“ Do you know of one ? — somewhere ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Who is he ? ’ 

“ 0 don’t ask me — ask Barbara.” 

“ Where does he live ? ” 

“ 0 far, far away.” 

“ What is he like ?” 

“ He has dark hair and brave black eyes.” 

“How do you know ?” 

“I have it from Barbara’s mother — she knew him 


NAKCISSA. 


253 


when he was a child— 0, such a beautiful child ! — and he 
has a tame squirrel in a cage. ” 

“ How old is this young man now ? ” 

“ Twenty-four.” 

“ Does Barbara think about him often ? ” 

“ Yes, all the time.” 

“ Has Barbara spoken to her mother or father about 
this young prince ? ” 

“ 0, not for the world ! ” 

“ What is his name ?” 

“ Hush ! — I shall not tell anybody his name.” 

“ Why not, Harcissa ? ” 

“ Because Barbara forbids me ever to mention it.” 

“ Is it the same name which that forlorn girl so long ago 
wrote on a piece of paper and set adrift in a plum- jar ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ And then again in a marmalade cup ? 99 

“ Yes.” 

“ And then in a white-honey glass ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And then in a Spanish-olive jar ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ And then in many other little glass jars, and vases, 
and jelly-cups, and wine-bottles — making a whole flotilla 
of ships, all sent forth over the sea on love’s search for its 
one lover ? ” 

“ Narcissa,” exclaimed Barbara, discontinuing the third 
person, and answering directly, “ you never comfort me — 
you only remind me of my misery. But do you think 
that my heart will always be bowed down ?” 

“Yes,” replied Harcissa, “a woman’s heart must al- 
ways be bowed down so long as she has an idol to whom 
she kneels.” 

“ Narcissa, you are a gypsy — how much shall I pay you 
for all this fortune-telling ? ” 


254 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ 0 my dear, anything you please.” 

“Narcissa, if I make you something that will just fit 
you, will you promise to wear it ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Then I will make you a fool’s-cap.” 

Barbara then, in turning away from Narcissa, would 
yearn for some real and living companion of her own age 
with whom to compare herself, in order to gain a more 
satisfying self-knowledge ; hut, having no such companion 
outside of herself, she would bravely question her own 
mind, thus : 

“Can I sing ? Yes, I can sing.” She would even ac- 
knowledge that to the birds she could give back song for 
song ; that she could 

“ Murmur by the water-brooks 
A sweeter music than their own ; ” 

but her perplexity was, though she could do all this, yet 
as compared with other maidens far away, was her voice 
harsh or sweet ? This she could not ascertain. “ 0,” 
she exclaimed, “ how vexatious it is, not to be sure whether 
I am a crow or a nightingale.” 

In like manner she inquired of herself whether she was 
homely or fair. But on this point, too, she had no chance 
to make judgment by comparison. “I do not know 
whether I am a beauty or a fright,” she sighed. And what 
problem could have been more tormenting to a woman’s 
mind ? 

“ Am I educated and intelligent, or only a poor little 
dunce ? ” She could not guess which ; for, having never 
been a scholar in a class with competitors, she had never 
measured her own proficiency with theirs. 

“ Am I good or bad ? ” Here too she was equally per- 
plexed. Her heart was such an uncertain sea — now in 
quiet, now in tempest — that sometimes she imagined her- 


NARCISSA. 


255 


self a saint, more often a sinner ; “ for how can I tell,” 
thought she, “ whether I am one of the wise or the fool- 
ish virgins ? — and my father says that eyen the wise are 
foolish enough.” 

Was she a filial daughter, or a grief to her parents ? 
Ever since she had experienced her quickened loye for 
them, she frequently chid herself for imaginary short- 
comings, now toward her mother, now toward her father. 
“ Suppose,” said she, “ that my parents had had other chil- 
dren — would my brothers and sisters have caused such 
trouble and anxiety as I have done ? ” But the more she 
pondered this query, the less she could answer it. 

Was she rich or poor ? She was not consciously either ; 
for as riches and poverty are comparative conditions, she 
was unable to say whether she was of high station or low. 
“1 do not know,” she sighed, “ whether I am a peasant 
or a queen.” 

Barbara constantly plied herself with these, and with a 
great multitude of other, anxious inquiries, which she 
could easily ask to her bewilderment, but could never 
answer to her satisfaction. 

“ Who am I ? what am I ? where am I ? what is to be- 
come of me ? ” 

This was Barbara’s unanswered catechism, and however 
often she propounded it to herself, still its high-sounding 
questions elicited only faint-sounding echoes of themselves. 

The fair forehead on which her meditative forefinger 
was laid with a pensive touch of inward inquiry — as a 
curious pilgrim rests his staff against the Sphinx — kept its 
secret to itself, and was willing that the anxious ques- 
tioner, though abundantly alive, should remain ignorant 
of life. 

The great reason why Barbara was such a perplexity to 
her own mind, was not owing to her peculiar seclusion, so 
different from that of other young women, but to the 


256 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


natural enigma which every young, gifted and restless 
human soul, even amid the most fortunate surroundings, 
must always he to its ever-aspiring and ever-baffled self. 

If Barbara could not tell whether she was one thing or 
another ; whether her mind was educated or ignorant ; 
whether her character was lovely or vicious ; whether her 
soul was pure or wayward ; all this was because her facul- 
ties were still in their formative process, and had not yet 
precipitated themselves into the permanent crystal of their 
final mould. 

On the one hand, as to her intellectual education, it had 
gone much farther than that of most young women (or 
. young men) of her years ; for her parents were rare in- 
structors ; hut their fair pupil was unaware of the superior 
advantage which she had always possessed over most others 
of her own age in the crowded world. 

On the other hand, as to her moral development, al- 
though this had been of the highest order possible in the 
circumstances, yet the circumstances themselves — notwith- 
standing Jezebel’s theory to the contrary — were not pro- 
pitious to Barbara’s best moral and spiritual discipline. 

The secluded maid had dwelt remotely aloof from the 
world’s common temptations to evil, and was therefore de- 
prived of the wholesome opportunity of resisting these 
insidious but salutary enemies of the soul. This resistance 
is a holy war which all must wage who hope to win a true 
victory of life. In a great degree, Barbara’s life had con- 
sisted in doing neither wrong nor right. Her moral stal- 
wartness had never yet stiffened under the buffet and 
brunt of the world’s rude blows. She now dwelt like Eve 
in a secluded garden, yet without Eve’s two instructors — 
the tempting serpent and the flaming sword. But the 
serpent that crept into Paradise, and the sword that flashed 
over its gates, have ever since been twin guardian angels 
of mankind. The one brings temptation — the other, 


NARCISSA. 


257 


punishment. Temptation and punishment are the chief 
aids to virtue ; they yield a brave culture to the soul ; they 
are earthly forms of heavenly discipline. 

“Alas !” exclaimed the troubled catechist — who always 
began her questionings with pride only to end them with 
humility — “ it is only too plain, the more I look into my- 
self, that I am nothing but a poor, half -savage creature, 
shut out from the civilized world because I am not fitted 
to enter into it.” 

To every aspect of Nature, Barbara’s eyes were open, and 
her soul was reverent. She delighted in the pretty story 
told of Linnaeus, who, whenever he discovered a new 
flower, thanked heaven for the sight. She worshipped at 
the holy altar of a religion that lifts its homage 

“ From Nature up to Nature’s God.” 

In studying the divine handiwork of creation, she sought 
not only for outward signs but inward significations. She 
held mystical communion with the flowers, the trees, the 
birds, the winds, and the waves. 

She made the land as completely her own as she had 
made the sea ; she was the fair mistress of both ; and 
sometimes as she walked with bare and shining feet along 
the sea-sands, following the foamy edge of 

“ The league-long roller thundering on the reef,” 

or as she went trailing through the dewy grass with cool, 
moist, morning tread, she seemed like some stray goddess 
from the Olympian realm. Indeed she might have per- 
sonated the divine Venus herself, who once walked this 
earthly globe with so celestial step that under her footfalls 
the sea feathered into foam, and the land blossomed into 
flowers. 


258 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Mary,” asked Dr. Vail one day, “when yon lived in 
the world, did yon ever see a fairer or nobler creatnre than 
onr daughter Barbara ? ” 

“ hTo,” said her mother proudly, as many mothers have 
said before, and will say again. Mrs. Vail’s unprejudiced 
judgment, un warped by parental bias, told her that Bar- 
bara must have seemed to all the world — could its millions 
of admiring eyes have beheld her — nothing less than one 
of its chiefest wonders and delights. 

Whatever she did, whether taming the goats, mocking 
the birds, gathering the fire-flies, defying the rains, answer- 
ing the winds, or invading the floods — Barbara did every- 
thing with such a splendid, restless, mad-cap energy that 
her father exclaimed one day, struck with her exuberance 
of spirits, 

“ Barbara, you are a wild Diana, wilder than the wil- 
derness.” 

Dr. Vail’s illness and convalescence continued nearly 
three months — through June, July, and August. The 
island, during the first two months, was daily drenched 
with the outpourings of the rainy season ; but, during the 
third, was perfumed with the same fragrant airs which 
Columbus found so balmy, and which his companions mis- 
took for the breath that blew through Eden. Having 
been fever-smitten and almost death-struck, the physician 
was still his own patient — pale and haggard. He now took 
advantage of the fine weather to walk a little every day in 
the cool mornings, leaning on his daughter’s arm. 

At first these walks were very short — not farther than 
from the house to Jezebel’s fresh-water spring and back 
again. Dr. Vail imagined that the water possessed a 
medicinal tincture of iron. He drank from this fountain 
of life with daily invigoration. 

At length, still leaning on the same beauteous arm 
that had never been pressed against another man, he 


NAKCISSA. 


259 


walked to the cove to set his glad eyes once more on the 
Coromandel. 

“Ah, Barbara,” said he jubilantly, “this is a happy 
sight. When I last saw the Coromandel, she was on her 
beam-ends. The brave old ship rallied from the earth- 
quake many weeks sooner than her master has done, who 
has not recovered yet. Barbara, if you and I are spared 
to enter the world, the old ship must enter with us. And 
once there, she must never be put to any sordid or common 
use, but only to some sweet charity — perhaps to be a 
merciful hospital for weather-beaten sailors like our- 
selves.” 

Barbara, who had for several weeks been preparing a 
surprise for her father, led him one morning, under pre- 
tence of varying their walks, to the little boat Good Hope. 
The maiden had planted it round about with vines and 
flowers, which she had dug up by the roots from various 
parts of the island, and had massed together about the 
little wreck in brilliant profusion. The rain had touched 
them with a magic of swift and luxuriant growth. They 
grew up between the broken planks, gently hiding all signs 
of the disaster — just as on the field of Waterloo, a few 
weeks after the battle, the midsummer vines had already 
grown up through the rents and holes which the cannon- 
shots had made in the fences and walls. 

“You see, dear father,” said Barbara, “that our Good 
Hope is every day budding into fuller bloom.” 

Among the flowers which Barbara had transplanted to 
grace the pinnace was a black rose — its petals resembling 
flakes of soft black satin. It was like a common rose in 
stalk, thorn, calyx, shape, fragrance, and all ; only, instead 
of being red, pink, or white, it was black as jet. 

Barbara, to whom all flowers were an equal novelty, saw 
nothing singular in this vagary of Nature. But her father, 
who had once heard that such an ebony rose existed some- 


260 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


where in the tropics, but who had never credited the 
report, was as pleased with this new glory as if he had 
shaken diamonds from it, instead of dews. 

“ This,” said he, “is 

“ ‘ Helen’s beauty in the brow of Egypt. ’ 

It is Solomon’s canticle, and says, ‘I am black but comely.’ 
It is Jezebel’s own flower — her young wild sister of the 
wilderness ; pluck it and take it to her. ” 

Barbara carried it carefully in her left hand, while 
her right arm was her father’s prop during the return 
walk. 

“Jezebel,” said Rodney, after reaching the house 
(Barbara concealing the strange flower behind her), “ did 
you ever see a coal-black rose ? ” 

“Law, yes, Massa Vail,” replied Bel, — a pleased air of 
reminiscence glowing in her face. “ Coal Black Rose ? 
Law, yes ; she was de ole buttermilk woman ob Salem ; 
she went round in de mornins, ringin’ her bell, and cryin’, 
‘Want any buttermilk?’ Yes, dat was her name — Coal 
Black Rose.” 

“ 0, no,” replied Barbara, “ my father means this rose 
— look at it,” and she gave it into Jezebel’s hand. 

“ Well, I declar’ ! ” exclaimed the elder of the Ethiops, 
as much pleased as if gazing at a new-born babe of that 
race. “What’s de Lord agwine to do nex’ ! He keeps 
a-workin’ in de garden all de time. Jist as like as not, if 
He was agwine to ’stroy de world to-morrow, He would be 
makin’ new roses in it to-day. Well, what’s de good book 
say? — ‘Cometh up like a flower.’ How, dat’s been de 
way de white folks hab come up — for dey are like de 
flowers. Look at dis yer girl’s rosy cheeks and blue eyes — 
jist like de flowers ; and look at dis yer har\ jist de color 
ob de marigold” — stroking Barbara’s flowing tresses, — 


NARCISSA. 


261 


iC Yes, dis lamb, she’s always been a cornin’ np like a 
flower, because she is all de flowers put into one . But how 
could ole Bel ever ’spec to come up like a flower, when 
dar nebber was no flower black enough for her to come up 
like ? Dis black rose would do, but de springtime is over for 
ole Bel. It’s too late now for dis ole woman to be a cornin’ 
up like any kind ob a flower.” 

Just then her clumsy hand jarred the ripe rose, so that 
the rose-leaves fell in a pretty rain at her feet. 

“ Look dar ! ” she exclaimed, beholding what she thought 
an emblem full of moral meaning, “ what’s de good book 
say ? ‘De grass withereth — de flower fadeth.’ Yes, de 
flower fadeth— see, here de leaves hab dropped off— jist as 
black as if dey was all dressed ’gwine to a funeral. Lawks 
a massy, if de time hab long passed for ole Bel to come up 
like dis black rose, de time hab jist come for ole Bel to 
drop off like dese dyin’ leaves. Yes, my chillen, ole Bel is 
jist in time, not to come up but only to drop off like a 
flower.” 

Dr. Yail, as soon as he grew strong enough to swing an 
axe, cut open a vista among the trees surrounding the 
house, in order to command from its threshold a view of 
the ocean. 

A few days afterward he was rewarded for his labor 
with a sight that shot a thrill through his soul. 

“A steamer ! ” he exclaimed, — “ and what ? yes, sending 
a boat ashore ! For us ? !STo, it must be for water. But 
the crew shall take us too, I must meet them at the south 
beach ! God be praised for deliverance at last ! ” 

He made this glad discovery just at daybreak. The 
family were all asleep. He roused no one but Mary, to 
whom he briefly announced the news. Then, without 
waiting another moment, he started with mad speed for 
the southern end of the island. 

Did he run like a sick man ? Not he. He might have 


262 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


been mistaken on the way for Apollo or lithe Diomed. 
The fable gives wings to Mercury’s feet. With flying foot- 
steps Rodney Yail sped toward the sea-beach — toward the 
strange ship — toward the human race — toward all the 
goals of life at once : — as if they were all to be rushed at, 
panted for, and overtaken at one leap and bound. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


PACE TO FACE. 

“iV/fY dear Barbara,” said her mother, “I wonder why 
your father stays so long ? I hope it is good news 
that detains him. 0, to think of hailing a rescuing ship 
— of returning to our own land ! ” 

Since Dr. Vail’s departure from the house, more than an 
hour had now elapsed. 

Barbara stood on the stony threshold of Frangois Garce- 
lon’s old hut, and gazed through the vista in the trees 
toward the ocean. 

“My dear mother,” said she, “no ship is there — father 
is always seeing some approaching vessel where none is in 
sight. But there is one old hulk always within hailing 
distance ; that is the Coromandel. I will go and look for 
my father at the coye ; he is probably fixing the ferry- 
basket : he took it off yesterday to mend it.” 

And Barbara sauntered off, singing. 

Dr. Yail, in hurrying to the south beach to reconnoitre 
the strange boat’s crew, was not aware that eastward of this 
little green solitude, about seventy miles distant, lay the 
English island of Barbados— hiding its hills just below the 
horizon, and hiding among them the mimic city of Bridge- 
town and the quiet roadstead of Carlisle Bay. 

The earthquake which, three months before, ran with such 
violence between Trinidad and St. Kitts, touched Bar- 
bados with the faint pulse of a spent wave. The nine days’ 

263 


264 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


wonder had now become a forgotten event in Bridgetown, 
giving place to a new topic of town-talk, which was the 
recent arrival of the British frigate Tantalus of the Coast 
Survey — the same ship that, seventeen years before, had 
re-charted the harbor of Cape Town, just as she had now 
come to do for Carlisle Bay. 

Admiral Gillingham was still her commander — now a 
white-haired veteran who had long served his country with- 
out entailing on it a cost of gunpowder, except for friendly 
salutes. 

On the hot afternoon previous to Rodney Vail’s discovery 
of the strange steamer, the aged admiral sat on board the 
Tantalus in Carlisle Bay, under an awning on the quarter- 
deck, smoking a friendly pipe with a bluff companion still 
older than himself. 

As the two puffed together, the veteran coast-surveyor 
looked less like a great commander than did his robust, 
gigantic, and antique guest ; for this venerable fellow- 
smoker — who out-smoked the admiral — was Capt. John 
Scarborough, otherwise Scawberry, otherwise Scaw. 

There he sat — the same old son of thunder ; the same 
uneasy Hercules, too heavy for his chair ; the same mas- 
sive face and frosty figure-head ; the same crisp, snappy, 
kind-hearted curmudgeon who used to toss up the lad 
Philip Chantilly in his grandfatherly arms. 

Capt. John Scarborough was in Barbados to settle the 
estate of his deceased twin- brother James ; who, having 
a few years previously removed from London to Bridge- 
town, had there died, leaving his affairs to be administered 
by John. This mournful task having now been frater- 
nally executed, Capt. Scaw was waiting an opportunity to 
return to South Africa. Meanwhile he enjoyed a daily 
pipe with his old acquaintance Admiral Gillingham. There 
had once been a tiff between them concerning the Coroman- 
del, but this little breeze had long ago died away, and the 


FACE TO FACE. 


265 


old men now met each other with unruffled and tobacco- 
quieted minds. 

“ As a Briton/’ said Gillingham, “ I do not give my sym- 
pathy to the Northern side in this American ciyil war ; but 
if I were a Yankee, I think I could catch a certain Confed- 
erate privateer in a twinkling.” 

“What ship are you ’intin’ at ?” asked Scaw, who still 
practised his old-time ill-usage of the letter H. 

“ I don’t know her name,” answered Gillingham, “nor 
her armament, nor anything about her, except only that 
she is a small steamer, out of order, and hiding away for 
safety not thirty leagues from this port.” 

“ Where his this cockatrice’s den ? ” asked Scaw. 

“ The ship is anchored in a cove among the Grenadines,” 
replied Gillingham. 

“ Well,” answered Scarborough, “ she’s then safe in Brit- 
ish waters, protected by hinternational law.” 

“ True,” observed the admiral, “ but she cannot stay 
there forever ; and if I were a Northern cruiser, I would 
lie in wait for her as a cat for a mouse, and pounce on her 
when she ventured from her hole.” 

“ ’Ow did you git your hinformation ? ” 

“ It was told me to-day by Lieut. Spotswood, of the 
Calabria, lately from Trinidad. On his course hither he 
yesterday passed the Grenadines, and noticed that one of 
them was giving harbor to a dismantled steamer. He 
looked at the chart to identify the roadstead and found 
that the island was not laid down. The night was moon- 
lit, and he could see distinctly with his glass. The se- 
creted vessel was well-hidden among cocoa-palms— appar- 
ently undergoing repairs — masts out, smoke-stack down, 
and bowsprit gone. That, sir, was a Confederate priva- 
teer — I will, wager a bottle of Madeira on it. Spotswood 
gave me the latitude and longitude on this piece of 
paper.” 


266 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


The two old men then went into the chart-room and 
inspected the faulty chart. 

“ I hear,” continued Gillingham, “that your old friend, 
Oliver Chantilly, now commands an American gunboat ; 
at least, there’s a Capt. Chantilly registered to the gun- 
boat Tamaqua ; is this the same man ? ” 

“Haye aye, sir,” replied Scaw, “and what’s more — and 
what you and I can’t say as bachelors — which the same no 
man hought to be — Holiver Chantilly has got a son who’s 
the better man o’ the two.” 

“Do they still chase the wild goose?” asked the ad- 
miral ; “do they still expect to find the Coromandel ?” 

“Yes,” answered Scaw. “Those two men keep paid 
look-outs to this day at St. ’Elena, the Eaulklands, Rio 
Janeiro, and Cape St. Roque ; they salary a shippin’ clerk 
at Liverpool to collect and file all reports o’ wrecks and 
castaways ; they ’ave spent guinea hafter guinea in gettin’ 
transcripts of hall the bottles found at sea and reported at 
London, Paris and Washington ; yes, and they ’ave like- 
wise pushed their hobservations round the ’Orn — though 
there’s no chance that the Coromandel could ’ave gone so 
low down as that.” 

“She has gone,” said Gillingham, “still lower down — 
she has gone to the bottom.” 

This remark would have roused old Scaw into a master- 
ly rage, had not his attention just at that moment been 
diverted by the distant firing of a gun on the bay. 

“ What ship is that ? ” asked the admiral of a midship- 
man ; for an incoming cruiser was thus loudly announcing 
her arrival ; — a war-vessel under steam, and flying the 
American flag. 

“ It is the American gunboat Tamaqua,” was the mid- 
shipman’s reply. 

“Speak of the devil,” cried Gillingham, “and he is al- 
ways on the spot.” 


FACE TO FACE. 


267 


Scarborough was smitten with sudden delight. The 
Tamaqua ? His friend Oliver Chantilly’s vessel in the 
offing ? Could it be possible ? 

“Hadmiral,” said Scaw, “I would like to be rowed to 
that wessel at once ; for if that’s Holiver Chantilly, ’ere’s 
a ’and o’ mine that wants a grip o’ ’is ; and no delay, sir ; 
for life’s too short to lose time before goin’ to greet an old 
friend.” 

Capt. Scaw was immediately set afloat in a jolly-boat. 

The Tamaqua had anchored a mile from the Tantalus. 

As the English boat approached the American ship, a 
young American officer, who spied afar off in the boat the 
venerable visage of its stalwart passenger, stood at the ship’s 
gangway, waiting for the veteran’s ascent to the deck. 

“ Ship ahoy, Philip, my lad, my brave lad, my own 
lad ! ” cried Scarborough, with a voice that could be heard 
all over the bay ; after which the grandfatherly Hercules, 
without consulting the proprieties of naval etiquette, 
clasped his arms about the young man and threatened to 
toss him up in the air as in the olden time. 

“And where’s your father, Philip?” inquired Scaw, 
his heart yearning toward his old friend. 

“He is in the cabin, sir. Come with me. We will 
give him what the enemy has tried to do and failed — a sur- 
prise.” 

It was a surprise indeed — and followed quickly by a com- 
memoration of it ; for while Capt. Chantilly and his old 
friend were exchanging greetings down stairs, Philip 
whispered an order to a midshipman, wbo hurried with it 
to the deck, and in a few moments the ship shook with 
belching cannon. 

“What’s that?” asked Scarborough, startled by the 
guns. 

“That, sir,” replied Philip, “is an American salute in 
honor of an Englishman who never uttered an insult to 


268 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


the American flag, and who in this respect is a grand old 
example to some of his countrymen.” 

There was such a fine audacity in this American salute, 
fired in a British port, that it touched the old instrument- 
maker’s pardonable pride, and set burning all his early 
affection for his young protege of former days, grown up 
now and acting a hero’s part under his country’s flag. 

f 1 f Have you any news of the Coromandel ? ” asked Philip, 
who began at once to speak of the uppermost thought in 
his mind. 

“ No, not a word — not a whimper since the bottle from 
Drosante,” replied Scaw. 

“ Poor Vail !” sighed Oliver. “ I still believe him to 
be drifting about the sea. Philip is sure of it. My son 
and I still keep alive our old faith in that charmed ship.” 

“Yes,” said Philip, gravely. “The last thing a man 
should ever give up is his hope ; and, like the Yicar of 
Wakefield, no man has a greater knack at hoping than I.” 

“Philip, my lad,” asked Scarborough, “do you really 
think we shall ever see that hulk ? ” 

“See it !” exclaimed Philip. “Why, sir, I see it all 
the time. It never is out of my mind’s eye. At Savannah, 
in the midst of the fight, I saw it come floating between 
me and the enemy’s guns to intercept their fire. I have 
seen it at daybreak, lying like a black bar across the sun. 
I have seen it at high noon, drifting athwart our bow, just 
within a trumpet’s call. I have seen it at sunset, floating 
in the purple waters, burning again yet unconsumed. Go 
where I will, stay where I may, that ship goes with me, 
stays with me — never departs from me. See it ? Why sir, 
I continually see, not only the drifting Coromandel, but 
all the moving figures of her wistful company, fair Barbara 
in the midsj; of them, imploring deliverance.” 

Capt. Scarborough was struck with the deep-seated feel- 
ing which Philip evinced in these remarks ; for the young 


FACE TO FACE. 


269 


man’s flushed face gave token of the fire that was burning 
in his soul. 

“What has become of Lane?” asked Oliver. “Does 
that poltroon still make voyages to Cape Town ? ” 

“No, he never once showed his white-livered himmage 
there after the news from Drosante. He is now in the 
Confederate navy.” 

“ Then,” said Capt. Chantilly, “ I hope I may live to 
give him a thrashing.” 

“ And so Lane,” observed Philip, musingly, “ has gone 
over to the Confederates ! ” 

This reminded Capt. Scarborough of Admiral Gilling- 
ham’s suggestion as to catching a Confederate prize. 

“Philip!” exclaimed Scarborough, leaping from his 
chair with great eagerness, “ I’ve got a chance for you ! — 
yes, ’ere in my wescot, — demmit, a hopportunity to show 
your mettle — yes, sir — fame, glory, promotion. I’ve got a 
Confederate prize for you — ’ere — somewhere in my waise- 
bands, if I hever could find anything hafter I ’ve once put it 
in my pocket. Yes, ’ere it is— look at this card. Demmit, 
that card will be your passport to promotion.” 

Philip scanned the mysterious memorandum that prom- 
ised him such unexpected renown. 

“What does this mean ?” he inquired. 

The meaning was then made plain by Scarborough. 

“A moment lost,” said Philip, quoting Napoleon’s max- 
im, “is an opportunity for misfortune. Let us l. art to- 
night. To-morrow may be too late.” 

Charts were examined ; plans discuss; - * a programme 
laid out ; secrecy enjoined ; and at nightfall, after Capt. 
Scarborough had returned to in> Tantalus, the American 
gunboat Tamaqua got quietly under way and went to sea 
under a soft starlight-- sneering. S. S. E. 

Not till after she had started, did the captain explain to 
his off ; .iid r n the undertaking. 


270 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


All were eager for it — some for fame, others for advent- 
ure, others for prize-money. It is fortunate that a great 
cause like one’s country can appeal to so many varying 
emotions in one’s countrymen ; otherwise a national gov- 
ernment might not always be able, out of the nettle danger, 
to pluck the flower safety. 

Toward morning, after having steamed about seventy 
miles, and being in the close neighborhood of the Grena- 
dines, the captain gave orders to lie to and wait for dawn. 

He and Philip went below for an hour’s sleep, leaving 
the deck in charge of Lieut. Anthony Cammeyer. 

This was an ambitious young officer who, being some- 
what older than Philip, and yet a grade lower in rank, bore 
a grudge against the two Chantillys on the groundless sup- 
position that they had interfered to prevent his promotion 
after the affair at Savannah. 

But his two superior officers, having done him no injus- 
tice, were wholly ignorant of his resentment. 

Lieut. Cammeyer was a keen-eyed, reticent, selfish man, 
covetous of prize-money. He had once thrown away a 
prize more precious than money. His earlier and lost 
treasure was nothing less than the hand of Lucy Wil- 
merding. 

After plighting his troth to her years ago, on the suppo- 
sition that she was to inherit her father’s princely fortune, 
he soon discovered that the eccentric old millionaire med- 
i vi r u - iff ^rent disposition of his estate ; whereupon the 
young 'n,.: . ruthlessly discarded the undowered woman, 
and thereby tkiwr iwev 

• 

“A pearl riche* • her tribe.” 

The truth is that Lawrence Tv - ie ' . . early distrust- 
ing Anthony Cammeyer’s motive in makffi. love to Lucy, 
and rightly suspecting that the crafty suit ^ wooing 


FACE TO FACE. 


271 


not the daughter’s heart but the father’s wealth, resorted 
to a shrewd stratagem for testing the young financier’s in- 
tegrity of soul. 

The stratagem was this : 

“ Anthony,” said he, one day, “ I have just been making 
my will ; and as a large estate is involved, and as I prefer 
that no mere business-friends should know my purpose, and 
as you arc to stand in a nearer relation to me .than any 
other man can hope to do, — I wish you, and you alone, to 
know the contents of my will and to witness my signa- 
ture.” 

The rich man then showed to Cammeyer a copy of a 
pretended will, bequeathing all his estate to the founding 
of a National University of Science in America. 

“ What a dotard that Wilmerding is ! ” exclaimed Cam- 
meyer, an hour afterward. “Does he think I am fool 
enough to marry a beggar, simply because she has a pretty 
face ? I will do with this man’s daughter exactly as he 
has done with her himself — I will cut her off.” And from 
that hour Cammeyer turned his back on the Wilmerdings 
and sought 


“Fresh woods and pastures new.” 

Lieut. Cammeyer was a sphinx-like man, keeping his 
thoughts, and especially his purposes, to himself. Often 
as he had heard the Chantillys speak of Lucy Wilmerding, 
of the Coromandel, and of the Yails, he never permitted 
either of his superior officers to imagine that he had ever 
known of the existence of Lucy except through their own 
allusions, nor of the Coromandel except in the same way. 
And yet Lucy had a hundred times, in her conversations 
and letters, mentioned to Cammeyer the missing ship. 

Moreover (just before her correspondence with her faith- 
less lover came to an end), she had spoken of an important 


272 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


fact which her father had made known to her confiden- 
tially ; namely, that both the Pritchard estate and the 
Vail property had each increased in value through railroad 
improvements, so as to make jointly a moderate but grow- 
ing fortune for Dr. Vail’s family, should the exiles live to 
get on shore and enjoy it. 

Dignified and taciturn, Lieut. Cammeyer had sailed 
with the -Chantillys ever since the outbreak of the war, 
yet had never made their intimate acquaintance. No 
man did his official duty more intelligently than he. 
Nevertheless, in social qualities, although there was some- 
thing elegant in his manner, he was haughty and forbid- 
ding, and had always been the most unpopular man on 
the ship. 

“Sir,” said Cammeyer to Philip, rousing him in his 
room, “did you not ask to be informed of any change 
in the barometer ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, sir, it is now at 29.” 

“ How is the wind ? ” 

“West.” 

“Then I will speak at once to my father.” 

Going into his father’s room, Philip said to him, 

“ There is a slight change in the weather ; the recon- 
noitering, I think, should be begun at once ; by and by 
we may be blown off the coast.” 

“ My son,” was the reply, “summon all hands to quar- 
ters and let us be ready for emergencies.” 

In order to find the whereabouts of the lurking priva- 
teer, the Tamaqua had gone southward of the uncharted 
island, and, putting herself where the Calabria had been, 
turned northward, following the Calabria’s course toward 
the insignificant shore. 

Suddenly the same sight that had been seen from the 
British ship was seen from the American. 


FACE TO FACE. 


273 


“ There can be no mistake about it,” said Philip ; 
“ Scarborough’s description is correct. Neither smoke- 
stack, nor bowsprit. She seems a castaway, badly dam- 
aged.” 

“ What makes the water so smooth there ?” asked his 
father. “ There should be breakers, or a rolling sea ; and 
yet the water-sheet is as still as a pond.” 

“ I detect,” replied Philip, looking through his glass, 
“ a low sand-bar — something, I judge, like the coral for- 
mations in the Pacific. The vessel is lying in a basin that 
seems walled round by one of nature’s breakwaters. She’s 
as quiet as a dove in a dove-cote.” 

“ Heave the lead,” said Capt. Chantilly. 

“ Thirty-four fathoms,” was the response. 

“ Again.” 

“Thirty.” 

“ Once more.” 

“ Twenty.” 

“ Once again.” 

“ Seventeen.” 

“ Quick, again.” 

“ Eleven.” 

All this shoaling took place in a few minutes, showing 
that the Tamaqua had suddenly come from deep water to 
a submerged bank which was rapidly running up to the 
surface. 

“ Philip,” said his father, “ stop the engines — heave to 
— pick a boat’s crew — take Cammeyer with you — row 
ashore — look out for torpedoes — feel your way like a wea- 
sel — and make a careful reconnoisance. But remember 
that you are in neutral waters. Commit no hostile act.” 

The morning was delightful, and as the boat’s crew 
sprang to their oars, the rowers enjoyed their task. 

“ This is a delicious climate,” said Philip, little think- 
ing that Miss Barbara Vail, of the Coromandel, had used 


274 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


those self-same words to characterize the self same thing, 
and not far from the self-same spot. 

There was now a strange energy in Philip. He rose 
and stood erect, glass in hand, as if gazing into unknown 
but sure glory. 

A miniature compass hung on his watch-chain, shut in 
a locket. While holding his spy-glass to his eyes with his 
right hand, he used the fingers of his left to fumble open 
this locket for a glance at the needle. Looking down, he 
discovered that by mistake he had opened the wrong 
trinket ; for his eyes fell, not on the magnetic toy, but on 
a still more magnetic attraction. This was the little pict- 
ure of Mary Pritchard’s face : — a face that he imagined 
to resemble another face of which he had seen no picture 
save in his mind’s eye : — the face of a sweet maiden on a 
wrecked ship, pleading for rescue : — the face, the form, 
the ever-present image of the undiscovered mermaid Bar- 
bara Vail. 

The accidental opening of this locket led Philip to say 
to himself, 

“ Yes, once again. It is always so. Wherever I sail, 
the Coromandel seems to be lying across my course. 
Whichever way I look, I see Barbara shining on me like a 
guiding star. Hoes she not lead me whithersoever I go ? 
Is she on earth or in heaven ? 0 elect lady, dear heavenly 

spirit — thrice heavenly if on earth — bend low to me 
to-day ! — speak to my inmost soul once more. Other men 
have had emblems and omens— be thy name my talisman. 
By this sign, I conquer ! 0 Barbara, thou art my vic- 

tory ! ” 

Philip’s extravagant fancies must be pardoned to a 
young idealist in the imaginative years of life. 

“Cammeyer,” said he, suddenly changing the key of 
his meditations, “keep an eye against the devil-fish!” 
• — alluding to possible torpedoes at the entrance to the bay. 


FACE TO FACE. 


275 


Philip had the wise and natural apprehensiveness that 
belongs to true courage. 

He motioned with his hands to the oarsmen to soften 
their stroke. “ I can see no sentinel on deck,” he said, 
“ and yet if there is one on duty, he must be able to see 
my boat plainly enough.” 

Rowing then some distance up into the still water, he 
noted through his glass, in swift detail, the most striking 
features of the old ship, saying to himself as he passed 
them in review, 

“ It is a rusty craft ; dismantled ; mouldy ; green with 
sea-weed along the water’s edge ; chain-cable festooned 
with fungus ; bows flanked with barnacles ; no side-wheel ; 
no, nor any wheel at all ; that’s no steamer ; no, nothing 
but an old wreck. The game is up. Masts ? Nothing 
but a remnant of an old jury-mast. That old craft is as 
hoary as Neptune’s beard. I have had a wild-goose chase.” 

Philip was disappointed. His sudden vision of glorious 
achievement vanished. His spirits sank. 

“I will take another look,” said he. “She is a puzzle 
— a curiosity. What can she be ? A Chinese junk ? — a 
floating-bethel ? — a county-jail ? — I never saw longer sea- 
grass growing even from a rock.” 

Closer inspection through the glass revealed to him, 
under the rust and mould, traces of a charred and black 
surf tee as from fire. 

“That ship,” he argued, “has been burned. But she 
did not burn here — this, is no port. She must have taken 
refuge here after the disaster. She was probably towed 
to this safe roadstead that her cargo might be hoisted 
out.” 

Philip began to grow indignant at the rusty and tranquil 
hulk, because it was not a Confederate prize. It was no 
prize of any kind. It could have been of no value to the 
owners themselves, thought he, or they would not have al- 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


m 

lowed a rescued yessel to go to ruin at leisure in a place of 
safety. 

“No,” said he, muttering to himself, “this ship was 
never in the Confederate service ; she is older than the 
war ; she looks as old as the Ark.” 

Gazing again with his glass, while his men rested on 
their oars, he said, 

“ She is in English waters, but is of American build.” 

Cammeyer suggested that the mouldy and silky- whiskered 
hulk might be the Elying Dutchman, laid up at last in 
port, too moss-grown to continue her voyage. 

“Pull away, boys,” ordered Philip, pointing up the 
glassy cove toward the strange craft. 

The dipping oars threw up sea-grass on their glittering 
blades ; multitudes of little fishes leaped out in fright ; 
crabs sidled up leisurely to the surface and back again ; 
chattering snipe ran with nimble legs along the water’s 
edge ; rank vines overhung the verge of the basin, doubling 
their greenness downward in its depth ; and as soon as the 
land-locked boat shut out the sea, a sylvan and lake-like 
landscape, rich with cocoa-palms, presented itself to Philip’s 
eyes. 

“Row slowly round the old ship,” said Philip, who now 
became quite enchanted with the scene, notwithstanding 
his disappointment in the expedition. 

The boat’s course was along the larboard side to the stern. 

“ Hold,” cried Philip, “ I want to see her name ; perhaps 
it is still visible on her stern : no, it is not here ; it has 
been burnt off ; perhaps it remains on the figure-head ; so 
boys, pull slowly along the starboard side up to the bow.” 

In went the oars again, making the little fishes jump 
away from these splashing invaders in their calm retreat. 

“ 0 God ! ” cried Philip Chantilly, smiting his forehead, 
“ is it so ? ” 

The oarsmen, whose faces were toward Philip, and who 


FACE TO FACE. 


277 

did not see the magic word on the ship’s how, wondered 
what had happened to their sober-minded young leader. 

‘ Are you struck ? ” asked Cammeyer, who saw the whole 
case at a glance, yet who hid his surprise. 

“Yes,” replied Philip, “lam thunderstruck and he 
leveled his forefinger at the figure-head. 

The men all turned and saw the name Coromandel. 

Philip took off his cap — passed his handkerchief across 
his brow as if to collect his thoughts — put his cap on again 
— thrust his handkerchief into his pocket — fumbled at his 
watch-chain — doing all these things unconsciously — until, 
having recovered his self-possession, he turned to his men, 
and with a preternatural solemnity of speech, addressed 
them as follows : 

“ My lads, for years past my father and I have searched 
for a missing ship, burnt at sea. She did not go down, 
but drifted in the South Atlantic with a little company of 
human beings on board, kept alive on a cargo of provisions. 
Once, and once only, we heard from this wreck — and that 
was years ago. We have since repeatedly written to all the 
maritime governments of Europe and America — to mer- 
chantmen — to whalers — to custom-house officers — to con- 
suls — to mission-stations — to every likely spot round the 
whole Atlantic coast — to get further tidings of the wrecked 
ship. All, all in vain. But I have always believed that she 
would be found — somewhere — somehow — sometime ! And 
here she is at last ! ” 

The men burst forth with a loud and ringing cheer, in 
which Lieut. Cammeyer joined with exterior compliance, 
but without hearty participation. 

“My father,” continued Philip, “will weep for joy at 
this sight. He must come here at once. Cammeyer ! set 
me ashore on this island, and then go to the Tamaqua and 
report this discovery to the captain. Tell him that the 
Coromandel is rotting here in this cove, waiting for his eyes 


278 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


to beliold her bleaching bones. Boys ! row as if you would 
break the blades ! Let the boat go like an antelope, and 
come like a deer ! ” 

Saying which, Philip stepped ashore, and at the next 
moment sixteen oar-blades went flashing down the cove 
and out to sea. 

Lieut. Chantilly stood for a few moments waving his cap, 
not merely as a courtesy toward his men, but as an uncon- 
scious bodily motion to give some freedom and relief to his 
beating heart. 

Never in his life had his pulse throbbed as now. 

“And this,” he exclaimed, speaking no longer with 
measured moderation, but with hot eagerness, “ this is the 
Coromandel ! — this the Holy Grael of my father’s search 
and mine ! — nothing but this old piece of mildew and 
mould ! And where is the ship’s company ? Whither 
have they fled from this ruin ? Where is the unknown maid 
who was born in that black hulk ? That was her cradle, 
then ? That was the dingy mansion in which she dwelt ! 
That was the prison-house and black barrier that has kept 
her so long from the world — and from me ! Burn ! — rot ! 
— sink ! — 0 dismal dungeon that has divided my soul from 
its mate ! Have I, after long search, found the shell, 
only to be denied the pearl ? ” 

Strange to say, Philip had not yet thought of finding 
Eodncy Vail or his family on the island ; for the young 
day-dreamer had always looked upon these personages as 
having an ideal rather than an actual existence, and espe- 
cially as never being in the same place where he was him- 
self, but always a thousand miles off ; and so he now in- 
stinctively removed them in his mind to the same familiar 
distance. 

“ But I shall get some tidings, some traces of them here,” 
he thought. “ I shall find how they got away from the 
ship ; who took them off ; where they went ; whether any 


FACE TO FACE. 


279 


of them are dead ; and Barbara — yes, I shall know whether 
to seek for her any longer on earth, or hereafter only to 
aspire to her in heaven ! ” 

Climbing then a rocky bank overhung with vines and 
shaded by cocoa-palms, he sat down on a great stone where- 
on he saw chiseled the figure of a cross, and under it in 
rude letters the words Ave Maria. 

“A Catholic country,” he observed, “and yet an Eng- 
lish island.” 

About to proceed to a still higher eminence, that prom- 
ised to show him at a glance the whole topography of the 
place, he suddenly heard amid the songs of the birds a 
woman’s voice in the near distance, singing ; but he could 
not see the singer. 

“ Hark ! ” quoth he, shutting the gates of all his other 
senses and opening only his entranced ears. 

It was an air of Mozart’s set to English words, begin- 
ning, 

“ You who know what love is. 

Tell me, Do I love ? ” 

The melody went through him like some remembered 
thought or dream. His pulses stood still. The air was 
charmed. The listener stood filled with awe. 

“ It is dream-land ! ” he whispered, not daring to speak 
aloud lest he should break the spell. 

On second thought, he stepped quickly through the 
bushes, and caught sight of a young maiden rosier than 
Aurora ; — her blue eyes full of the love that filled her song ; 
her golden hair coiled in a loose band about her beautiful 
head.; her face shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat ; her 
figure draped in a blue dress, loose and flowing like a 
morning-robe ; and her whole presence showing something 
of the vitality which gave to the nymphs and graces of the 
elder world — none fairer than she — their immortal youth. 


280 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


This mortal maiden beheld at the same time a real 
apparition, a young man clad in nayy blue, with gold 
straps on his shoulders and a gold band round his cap. 

There is an oyerfulness of astonishment that shows itself 
in simple blankness on the face : expression loses its power 
and dies in the effort. 

The maiden whom Philip thus suddenly encountered, 
and who had at the first moment seemed so full of warm 
life and motion, seemed to pass immediately afterward 
into petrifaction before him, as if the story of Pygmalion 
were reyersed and a liying goddess had been changed into 
sculptured stone. 

“ Who is she ? ” thought Philip, putting the question 
in sacred silence to his inmost soul. 

As when a fawn is startled, but is too young to take 
fright or flight, and stands in innocent and glad surprise, 
looking at the hunter, — so this maid then stood and gazed 
on this man. 

“ Who can he be ? ” thought she. “ He is of my father’s 
race. But why is his beard so black ? — my father’s is 
gray ; and why are his eyes so dark ? — my father’s are light. 
This must be a much younger man than my father. But 
this man too is proud-looking and noble — he is just like my 
father, only more graceful, being young ; yes, he is taller 
too ; no, he is not better in any way. That could not 
be — for my mother has always said that my father was the 
best of men. What a strange dress and cap ! — my father 
neyer had any such. How much gold there is on this 
young man ! He must be yery rich. He is a soldier — he 
is like the pictures of the generals; but where is his 
sword ? his banner ? his war-horse ? He looks like some 
prince — but where is his crown ? 0, 1 have seen this yery 
face, or one like it, in my dreams. Whenever I think of 
Philip, I think of some such countenance, only this is 
more noble than I could ever paint it myself. I wonder if 


FACE TO FACE. 


281 


this young traveler has ever met Philip ? Ah, though I may 
never see Philip in this world, yet to hear of him from 
some one who has actually seen his face — who has taken 
his hand — who has spoken to him — who has walked with 
him — who knows him — who loves him — 0 this would be 
happiness indeed ! ” 

All these thoughts passed swiftly through the maiden’s 
mind ; and while thus pondering she stood without mov- 
ing. The fawn did not flee, but looked the hunter straight 
in the face. 

Philip, coming to his senses, and bethinking himself of 
his gentlemanly duty to the fair shepherdess, straightway 
lifted his cap ; and as he bowed his uncovered head, he 
seemed as if about to say, 

“Mademoiselle, I am a wandering pilgrim, strolling 
without permission through your grounds ; and if I have 
committed an offence by my intrusion, I humbly crave 
your gracious pardon.” 

This is what Philip seemed to say by his manner, but 
what he actually said by his words was merely, 

“ Good morning.” 

To which, with sudden return to life, the speaking 
statue made answer in the same words, 

“ Good morning.” 

The lady, noticing the example of Philip’s doffed cap, 
excitedly took off her straw hat— an action which she sup- 
posed good usage required of her, since this well-bred 
gentleman had uncovered his head. In her haste, she 
pulled down her hair so that it fell in a loose torrent, 
streaming about her shoulders and reaching nearly to the 
ground. 

Abashed and mute at the spectacle, Philip looked with 
dazzled eyes at the beautiful nymph. 

“ Perhaps,” thought he, “this is the daughter of the 
governor of the island.” 


282 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


It did not occur to the wise and sedate fool that as the 
island was not laid down on the chart, it probably had not 
yet attained to the dignity of a governor.' 

“ Evidently she is some lady of rank,” argued Philip to 
himself. 

If Philip’s fancy had not been so completely bewildered 
by the blushing sylph, his sober common sense would have 
led him straight to the whole truth at once ; but now, in 
broad daylight, he had enveloped himself with mist and 
moonshine ; and he went on stumbling through the de- 
lightful darkness of his self-clouded thought. 

“ Can you tell me,” he asked, “ something about the old 
ship that lies anchored yonder ? ” 

“ The vessel’s name,” she replied, “is the Coromandel.” 

“Yes, I know her name ; I want to know her story — 
her career, her ” and he hesitated here. 

“ Her what ? ” asked Barbara, putting an unnecessary - 
question, in order to gain time for making an answer. 

“I wish to know of her rescue after so long drifting 
about the sea,” responded Philip. 

Although Barbara’s breast was a tumult of emotions, 
and although she seldom put any restraint on these, yet 
she was now conscious of a new instinct awaking within 
her : — a desire to control these feeling, so as not to betray 
them to a stranger. 

Gazing for the first time in her life on a young man, 
her woman’s wit whispered to her that she must not con- 
fess herself a wild woman of the woods or isles, but must 
meet this gallant guest with a virginal and shy welcome. 

Prompted by the native diplomacy of womankind, she 
managed to become at once the questioner rather than the 
questioned. 

“ Where are your companions ? ” she asked. 

“ I am alone,” he replied ; “I came with my boat’s 
crew, who landed me here and then went back to the ship.” 


FACE TO FACE. 


283 


Barbara bad read in story-books tbe frequent epithets — 
“ good sir,” “ fair sir,” and the like ; and she now resolved 
to put this elegant knowledge to a polite use. 

“ Good sir,” said she, “ I want to ask you,” — and she 
hesitated how to proceed. 

Just at that moment a powerful suspicion flashed like a 
flame through the heated fancy of Philip Chantilly, and 
he stood martyred at the stake between enkindled hopes 
and fears — burning alive with a consuming doubt as to 
whether the exquisite creature before him was or was not 
the heroine of the Coromandel. 

There are some problems so full of delirious pleasure to 
the mind that rather than solve them at once by running 
the risk of disenchantment, the doubter prefers to linger 
awhile in doubt. Philip, who had stood without flinching 
before the cannon’s mouth, now trembled like a coward, and 
dared not ask the young woman her name, lest the answer 
should suddenly frustrate his hope, and the fair stranger 
should prove to be some other than Barbara herself. 

“I have a friend, kind sir,” she said, stammering, “a 
dear friend living in the outside world — and — and per- 
haps you know him. ” 

This was a crushing question to Philip ; for how could 
a young maid, who had been cabined for a lifetime in a 
lonely 'ship on the sea, ask after a friend, a dear friend, in 
the outside world — a man too, since Barbara had used the 
pronoun “ him ” ? 

“ When have you seen your friend ? — and where ? — and 
who is he ? ” 

“0,” she replied, with some confusion, “I — I never 
saw him in my life — nor do I know where he is.” 

“ But you know who he is ? ” 

“ Yes, fair sir ; at least my mother knows who he is.” 

The wave of hope rushed back again and filled all the 
depths of Philip’s heart, mind, and soul. 


284 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


He thought of a little stratagem. 

Detaching the locket from his chain, and opening it, he 
inquired, 

“ Has anybody on this island lost this trinket ? It seems 
to be a locket with a portrait in it. Perhaps the picture 
would be prized by the owner.” 

“My mother, — it is my dear mother’s face when she 
was young ! ” exclaimed Barbara, on opening it. 

This was enough for Philip, who bowed his reverential 
head as to a shrine of devotion, and stepping back for fear 
of intruding too closely upon the angelic presence, was 
about to speak at a worshipful distance, when suddenly 
Barbara burst forth with the question, 

“Did you ever live at Cape at Cape ?” and she 

hesitated to say the next word. 

“At Cape Cod ? ” he interposed. 

“No, I meant at Cape Town.” 

1 Barbara now exhibited irrepressible emotion. It flashed 
in her eyes. It dilated in her nostrils. It bounded along 
her pulse. It flamed in her cheeks. She clasped her 
hands — her eyes streaming with tears — all self-restraint 
abandoned — and exclaimed passionately, 

“ 0 tell me who you are ! Tell me if your name is ? 

Tell me if you are — he indeed ! ” 

Philip gave one long look into her eyes, and spoke the 
word 

“ Barbara ! ” 

Whereupon the wonder-stricken maid — catching her 
breath — her color going and coming — her breast heaving — 
her tears falling — at last opened her speechless lips far 
enough to emit softly in response the bne sufficient word — 
“Philip !” 

Overpowered then with her tumultuous feeling, she 
sank to the ground as if all heaven had suddenly fallen 
upon her with an unendurable weight of joy. 


CHAPTER XX. 

^ A 

HEAET TO HEAET. 

“ T DECLAR’,” said Jezebel to her mistress, “Massa 
-L Vail, he’s gone to bunt for de strange ship ; and 
de dear lam’, she’s gone to hunt for de massa. Dem two 
folks is like de mornin’-glories on de ole Pritchard porch 
— always out de fust ting in de mornin’. Now I was a 
calc’latin’ on havin’ de dear lam’ go wid me to pick pine- 
apples. But no — off she strays, gaddin’ after de wain 
hopes ob dis world. Why does de precious lam’ sigh 
and pine for to go into de wicked world ? De world ? 
Fudge ! De world is for de worldlings. We ain’t dat 
kind. What’s de good book say ? 

“ ‘ When I can read my title clear 
To mansions in de sky.’ 


Dat’s de place for our hearts to lib in. ‘We hab a house 
not made wid han’s — eternal in de hebbens.’ ” 

Aunt Bel — who, when she lived in the world, had never 
derived from it such peace of mind as she had enjoyed 
in her long sequestration from it — was perfectly willing 
that the green remainder of her age should fade away in 
the same sunny isle where it was now turning into the 
withered leaf. She shrank from being plucked up and 
transplanted back into that rougher clime in which she 
had suffered all she ever knew of the frosts of life. 

285 


286 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Above all, she contemplated with alarm, and almost with 
rage, the possible irruption into the island of a boat’s crew 
of rude and boisterous men. If Beaver had looked for- 
ward to a visit from the common crowd of spaniels, whelps, 
and mangy curs that constitute the world’s race of dogs, he 
would have prepared himself to greet them with a growl 
of disdain, or a wheeze of high-bred scorn. In like man- 
ner, Jezebel stood ready at a moment’s notice to sniff 
haughtily at the whole intrusive pack of the human race. 

Barbara, on the contrary, who had just met one of the 
world’s inhabitants, had found thereby a happiness so great, 
so sacred, and so absorbing, that she was overcome with 
rapture. She who for years had longed for the world 
and its attractions, now suddenly discovered all these 
summed up and embodied before her eyes in one beloved 
image. 

Accordingly, the welcome which Barbara gave to the 
world — and to the chief citizen in it — was like what she 
would have given to heaven itself, had its chief arch-angel 
come down accredited to her on earth. 

While, therefore, Jezebel was denouncing the world, 
Barbara was blessing it. 

Philip and Barbara remained sitting beside each other 
on the grass. 

These two strangers had become in a moment as well ac- 
quainted as if they had dwelt together from childhood. 
Nevertheless they were still wholly ignorant that each had 
always been to the other an ideal character. They did not 
yet suspect that each had for years been the other’s supe- 
rior self. They were still unconscious that during all their 
sundered lives, they had nevertheless been, in a certain 
sense, indissoluble comrades. Their eyes were hidden from 
the strange fact that, though they had never seen each 
other, yet they had never been out of one another’s sight. 
They were not prepared to find that their having met at last 


HEART TO HEART. 


287 


was simply to demonstrate that they had never been parted 
at all. 

They now sat in a sort of ethereal bewilderment, unable 
to make a solid reality of the scene. They were in a “ house 
of clouds.” They had sought each other from such far 
distances, and at such great heights, that now at last, in 
meeting, they met like heaven-traversing birds — in the 
upper air ; not like human wanderers — on the lower earth. 

Moreover, since neither knew thaj; the other’s soul had 
been making this search for its far-off counterpart, their 
mutual ignorance now led them to restrain toward each 
other, thus far, the natural expression of those mutual 
emotions which otherwise would have found utterance in 
that other language of the lips which is richer than 'speech. 

“ Barbara,” exclaimed Philip, “ have I indeed found you 
at last ? ” 

Philip still seemed a skeptic, and could hardly credit the 
reality of his discovery of the actual and veritable Barbara 
Vail. 

“ Found me?” said she, repeating his word interroga- 
tively. 

Her face wore an expression of incredulity ; for the idea 
that she had been “ found ” seemed to imply that she had 
been “searched for” ; which she did not dream to have 
been possible. But at the next moment, a more plausible 
interpretation of Philip’s question flashed through her 
mind. 

“ 0, yes,” said she, “ I now understand your meaning ; 
I have been lost and found. At first I thought you meant 
that I had been sought and found. But of course that 
could not be.” 

“Ah, Barbara,” replied Philip, “you were lost, and 
therefore searched for — you were searched for, and there- 
fore found. ‘ The lost shall be found.’ * He that seeketh, 
findeth.’ You were lost, and sought, and found.” 


288 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ But,” said she, with an arch and bewitching smile, 
“you did not seek me; you sought the ship — you sought 
my father and mother — you could not have sought me ! ” 

“Yes, I sought you.” 

“ But, 0 Philip, that is not possible, for you did not 
even know that I was born ! ” 

“Yes, Barbara, I knew of your birth. My search was 
for you ; — it was more than for the ship — more than for 
your father and mother — more than for all the world be- 
side ; — it was for yourself.” 

“ 0 how strange ! ” exclaimed Barbara, turning her puz- 
zled thoughts intently upon the enigma, in a Tain endeav- 
or to solve it. 

“ Barbara, I knew of you through a little message cast 
up by the sea. It was in a square glass jar, which was paint- 
ed with two scarlet stripes. It gave me the names of the 
ship’s company, and said that you were three years old.” 

“ 0,” she responded, drawing a breath of relief, “that 
must have been one of my father’s records. That was 
concerning the ship, was it not ? Of course I cannot re- 
member that one,” she added, laughing — “it was so very, 
very long ago. 0 Philip, I was afraid you had picked up 
one of mine.” 

“ One of your what ? ” 

“ I mean one of the letters that I sent.” 

“ Did you send letters ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ How ? ” 

“ I sent them in the smallest fruit-jars. Whenever one 
was empty, and my father could spare it, I used to put a 
letter into it, to go by the ocean mail,” she added, in her 
laughing way. 

“ You sent letters ? — pray, to whom ? ” 

“To my friends.” 

“ Your friends ? — who are they ? ” 


HEART TO HEART. 


289 


“ One is Miss Wilmerding.” 

“ And who are the others ?” 

“ I have only one other.” 

“ And who is she ? ” 

“She? it is not she.” 

“ Well then, who is he ? ” 

“ Why, Philip ! why do you look at me so fiercely ? ” 

“ Barbara,” said Philip, “you sent letters to two friends 
— one a woman, the other a man. The woman was Miss 
Wilmerding — who was the man ? ” 

“ The man ? ” inquired Barbara, who was at a loss to 
understand a kind of resentful look on Philip’s counte- 
nance. 

“Yes, his name,” asked Philip, in a disturbed manner. 
“ One of your friends was Miss Wilmerding, and the other 

was Mr. who ? ” 

“ Mr. Chantilly,” she replied innocently. 

“ 0, yes,” exclaimed Philip, profoundly comforted. “ I 
did not think at the moment who it could haye been. You 
mean my father. ” 

“No,” retorted Barbara, with charming archness, “I 
never sent any letters to your father.” 

“ What ! do you mean that you sent them to me ? ” 
“Yes.” 

“In heaven’s name, Barbara,” he cried, “what knowl- 
edge had you of me?” 

“Why, Philip, I haye known you all my life. My 
mother made me acquainted with you years and years 
ago. You were then called Prince. You had a tame 
squirrel named Juju. What has become of him ? ” 

“That squirrel !” replied Philip, “ lived to a good old 
age, and, after he died, was buried in my mother’s garden.” 
“ Are you called Prince now ? ” 

“ Only by my father.” 

“ By no one else ? ” 


290 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ No.” 

“ 0 yes, Philip, by one other person.” 

“ By whom ? ” 

“ By me — I very often call you Prince ; for the name is 
noble, and makes me feel proud when I speak it.” 

Philip leaped to his feet, and looked at her with amaze- 
ment. 

“And so, Barbara, you have thought of me? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And written to me ? ” 

“Yes.” 

This was an unexpected revelation to Philip, and shook 
him to the centre of his soul. 

“ Barbara, do you mean that you wrote me actual letters ? 
— letters in English words ? — letters with pen and ink ? ” 

“ Yes, Philip, for I could not write them in any other 
words hut English — except in a little bad French.” 

“And you cast those letters adrift on the ocean ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Directed to me ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“At what place?” 

“At no place — just to you alone without any place- 
just to you in the wide world.” 

“ How often did you send those letters ? ” 

“ Oh ! very often.” 

“ Often ? — what is often ?” 

“Dear Philip, — a hundred times.” 

“ And during how long a period ? ” 

“ Why, for years — for weary years — ever since I could 
write. 0 how I used to yearn and pray to see your face ! 
But I could not. So I tried to content myself with send- 
ing you messages and letters. But I never expected you 
to get them — no, and above all, I never expected to see you 
on earth.” 


HEART TO HEART. 


291 


Philip was transfixed at the strange unison of souls 
which he thus discovered to have existed between Barbara 
and himself. This bond would not have been so surpris- 
ing had the twain ever known, or met, or seen each other; 
or had they been, conscious that they were known to each 
other. But such a union was peculiarly mystical and 
weird in having created itself by virtue of its own inher- 
ent spiritual vitality, without the intervention of personal 
acquaintanceship, or of social circumstance. 

Philip, looking down at the maid, who was sitting at his 
feet, exclaimed, 

“ And you have scattered my name up and down the 
sea?” 

“ Yes,” said she, bashfully, as- if caught in taking too 
great a liberty. 

“Then, let the brittle ships,” said he, “never sink — 
let them never be stranded — let them float forever ! Noth- 
ing can honor me henceforth. I have all there is of honor 
now. Dear Barbara, listen. I too have written your 
name ; I have written it in the sky— where it shines down 
on mine ; yes, yours is the name by which I name heaven 
itself.” 

With great bewilderment on her face, Barbara ex- 
claimed, 

“What wild words are you saying ? ” 

“Not wild but true,” he replied, quietly— speaking as 
from the depths. “After the joyful message reached my 
father and me that the Coromandel had not gone down, 
but was still afloat, and her passengers alive, — ever since 
that day, the ill-fated, good-fated ship has gone drifting 
like a phantom through my dreams ; and I have seen on 
her lonely deck a beauteous figure— with hair streaming 
in the wind — with tears dropping from her eyes— and with 
white arms outstretched for help. That imperilled maiden 
I vainly, year after year, sought to rescue. But during all 


292 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


that time, she kept constantly rescuing me. Yes, Bar- 
bara, yon have been my guardian-angel from that day to 
this. You hare gone with me into battle and turned away 
the balls. You have watched with me on lonely posts, and 
been my soul’s companion in still hours. You have exor- 
cised many an evil spirit from my breast. You haye in- 
spired me to all the good ambitions of my life. You have 
been my life itself.” 

As when a torrent is loosed from the hills in the spring- 
time, and goes rushing down to some low meadow, covering 
its verdure from sight, only to subside and leave the rich 
grass fresher than before, so this rushing speech went over 
Barbara’s spirit, drowning her for a moment in its over- 
whelming flood, only to exhibit her glowing countenance 
revivified into an expression of perfect bliss. 

“0 Philip, Philip !” she at length said, “is it possible 
that this is you ? — yourself ? — your own very self ? ” — and 
she put her hand on his head as if to attest his real pres- 
ence, half fearing to find the image a ghostly nothing — a 
phantom — a dream. 

“I think,” said Philip, in his mystical way, “there 
must be a chain made of invisible links, reaching round 
the world from each soul to its far-off mate, to draw them 
together. Heaven has ordained that the strong yearnings 
of a soul for its other self shall prove stronger than all ob- 
stacles that lie between — stronger than adverse winds and 
waves — stronger than intervening time and space. You 
and I have sought each other through distant seas and 
lands. We were both thinking the same thoughts without 
knowing it. We knew each other, not by the mind, but 
by the heart. The hemispheres divided you and me, but 
could not keep us apart. The ocean rolled between us, 
and yet we drifted over it toward each other. God, who 
made the human heart, respects its yearnings, for they are 
part of His own pulse. So I have always felt that you and 


HEART TO HEART. 


293 


I would meet — if not on earth, then in heaven ; but now, 
having- met here, earth and heaven are made one.” 

Barbara did not stop to inquire whether such mysticism 
could be true, but simply replied, 

“ 0 Philip, I have felt that /—poor wanderer ! — was 
always to seek but never to find. It is you who have done 
everything — I nothing. I was not even expecting you — I 
was only desiring you. How dared I harbor the presump- 
tuous thought that you were going about the ocean looking 
for poor lost me ! Dear Philip, if I had fancied that you 
were peering over the waters, through the days and nights, 
looking for me — I must have gone mad at the long separa- 
tion.” 

Philip looked at Barbara yet could not see her, for a mist 
clouded his sight. 

The greatest of all the oceans are the two drops of brine 
that can suddenly flood a human creature’s wistful eyes, 
surging forward into them from the inward depths of the 
soul. Philip was now sweetly tempest-tossed on these two 
fathomless seas. 

“Is it not strange,” asked Barbara, “that we should not 
have recognized each other at first ? ” 

“No,” replied Philip, after a pause. “It often happens 
that people living side by side, life-long, in bodily contact, 
never obtain a familiar glimpse of each other’s souls. If 
disembodied, they would not know each other’s inner selves. 
It is not more strange that other persons, who are drawn 
together especially by their souls, should not be quick to 
recognize each other merely by the flesh.” 

“ 0 Philip,” she repeated, “ I have not been content to 
know you by the spirit alone — I have wanted to see your 
face.” 

If Barbara’s mood seemed not wholly ethereal, but a 
trifle of the earth earthy, it was because the world with its 
fascinations was, to her, something like that far-off Ely- 


294 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


sium which Philip associated with the idea, not of earth, 
but of heaven. 

“0 Philip,” she asked, “what is the great world like, 
in which you have lived ? ” 

“ I have lived,” he replied, “ not in it, but out of it.” 

“ How ? ” 

“Dear Barbara, ever since I thought of my life at all, I 
have spent it partly in a ship, and partly in a grave.” 

“In what ship ? ” 

“The Coromandel.” 

Barbara’s blue eyes darkened with sudden drops. 

“And in what grave ?” 

“ My mother’s.” 

“Your mother, then, is dead ?” 

“Yes.” 

“This news,” said Barbara, with great emotion, “will 
break my mother’s heart.” 

Whereat, in quite an altered tone, she impetuously ex- 
claimed, 

“ Philip, I have all this time forgotten my mother. You 
have put her out of my mind. What an ungrateful child 
I am ! Come with me to my mother at once ! ” 

At which, with an energy that seemed a pretty frenzy, 
she caught his hand, and led him hurriedly toward the 
house. 

A decrepit old dog crossed their path, and barked at 
Philip. 

“ Beaver, hush ! ” said Barbara, “ I am ashamed of you. 
This is Philip. He has come to rescue you, and yet you 
bark at him. I am sure, Philip,” said she, turning toward 
him, “you will receive a less snarlish greeting from all the 
rest of our household. Beaver,” she added, lifting her 
finger in gentle admonition, “ never bark at Philip again.” 

Barbara left Philip at the door-step, while she entered 
the house to prepare her mother for his visit. 


HEART TO HEART. 


295 


As tlie young man sat waiting on Francois Garcelon’s 
antique and moss-fringed stone, he said to himself, looking 
round at the blooming flowers that grew near by, 

“ This is the Fortunate Isle ; this is the Enchanted 
Land ; this is the Gate of Paradise.” 

Philip’s ‘soul swam in 

“ The light that never was on sea or land.” 

Barbara had hitherto been so full of intense earnestness 
and solemnity that in now approaching her mother she in- 
stinctively glided into another mood of mind for relief ; 
and so, as she inherited her father’s playful temper, she 
hurst in upon Mrs. Yail with a laughing and excited face 
as if about to play some childish prank. 

“ Mother,” said she, going up to that invalid, who was 
seated in her Chinese chair, “I want to show you some- 
thing — look at this,” handing her the locket containing 
the portrait. 

“What ! more trinkets?” inquired Mrs. Vail, “the 
old ship has proved to be a jeweler’s bazaar. Every lady 
must have left her ornaments behind.” 

“ Dear mother, before you open this locket,” said Bar- 
bara, “tell me exactly how Madame D’Arblay looked; 
was she slender ? ” 

“No, quite plump.” 

“Had she dark hair ?” 

“No, light.” 

“ Side curls ? ” 

“No, none at all.” 

“Then this cannot be Madame D’Arblay; see if you 
can tell who it is.” 

Mrs. Vail fingered the snap of the locket, and before 
getting it open conjured up in her mind the faces of all 
the ladies who had been her fellow-passengers at the time 


296 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


of the disaster. At last the locket flew open and disclosed 
her own image. The discovery filled her with unaccount- 
able mystery, and therefore alarm. 

“My dear daughter, where did you find this ? ” 

“ My dear mother, where did you lose it ?” 

“I never lost it.” 

“ How then could I have found it ? ” 

“ Are you and your father playing another of your merry 
games ? ” 

“ My father has never seen this trinket.” 

“ My darling Barbara, you seem to be trembling with 
joy. What has happened ? Has your father signaled the 
strange ship and got news ? ” 

“ I have not seen my father since last night.” 

A shadow passed over her mother’s face at the disap- 
pointment of another hope. 

“Darling mother,” exclaimed Barbara, laughing, “you 
are too dear a mouse not to be played with a little longer 
by such a wild kitten as I.” 

“ Barbara, my dear, where have you been ? ” 

“I have been far away — yes, to a strange land, — and 
they call it the Cape of G-ood Hope,” and she fell upon 
her mother’s neck and smothered her with kisses ; in the 
midst of which Philip, who had been bidden to tarry out- 
side only until Barbara could show her mother the locket, 
and who had heard the conversation through the door, 
made bold to enter unbidden, and stood in Mrs. Yail’s 
presence, cap in hand, bowing. 

“Sir,” said Mrs. Vail, rising from her chair, while her 
pale face grew flushed and radiant with feeling, “who you 
are I know not — nor from what quarter of the world you 
have come — nor what chance has led you hither. But you 
are welcome, a thousand times welcome. Our friends have 
so long been strangers to us that we hail a stranger as a 
friend. In this little house — which is not our own, but 


HEART TO HEART. 


297 


was found by us just as it has been found by you— l beg 
you, sir, to consider that you haye the same rights as our- 
selves. ” 

“My dear mother,” exclaimed Barbara, who could 
hardly repress the almost childish glee that had taken 
possession of her, “ this kind gentleman has come to bring 
us news from Philip and Juju.” 

“ Sir,” asked Mrs. Yail, “have you seen that family? 
How recently ? And where ? ” 

“ Madam, I saw Oliver Chantilly’s family — or what re- 
mains of it — this morning.” 

Mrs. Yail started with alarm. 

“ I beg of you,” she said, “ explain yourself.” 

“My dear madam, the broken family that you have 
named consists now only of my father and myself.” 

“You?” cried Mrs. Yail, scrutinizing him keenly. 
“ Are you a Chantilly ? Then you must be Rosa’s eldest 
son. Ho, it cannot be — he was but a child when I saw 
him. Pray, sir, tell me of Rosa — has she gone back to her 
own country ?” 

“Yes, madam ; she came from heaven, and has returned 
to it.” 

“0, Rosa Chantilly,” exclaimed Mary, “are you dead 
and yet I live ? ” 

The news of Rosa’s death fell upon Mary with a shock that 
made her forget at the moment that Rosa’s son was present. 

“ You were my mother’s friend,” said Philip ; “ she is 
in her grave ; permit her son to salute you in his mother’s 
name.” 

Saying which, he reverently kissed her hand — an homage 
which he had thus far omitted to show to Barbara’s rounder 
and fairer hand. 

“And you are Rosa’s son ! 0 Philip, then let me 

welcome you as your mother herself would do if she were 
alive.” 


298 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Mrs. Vail kissed Philip tenderly — a proceeding that 
Barbara watched with profound curiosity. 

Hurried explanations followed, first as to the accidental 
meeting of Philip and Barbara, and then as to the expected 
arrival of Captain Oliver Chantilly on shore shortly. 

“This visit, Philip,” said Mrs. Yail, “is more than I 
ever dared to expect. Heaven blesses us more abundantly 
than we can ask or think. And so your dear mother is 
gone, while I tarry yet ! 0 Philip, my motherless boy, 

you must let me be a mother to you,” and she caressed 
him fondly, as if unconsciously making up for Barbara’s 
lack of that affectionate demonstration. “ But tell me, 
how came you in possession of my portrait in this 
locket?” 

“It was sent,” said he, “by Lucy Wilmerding from 
Europe to my mother, and did not arrive at Cape Town 
till after her death. I have worn it ever since. The 
picture has led me like a loadstone to the original.” 

“Hear Lucy !” said Mrs. Vail, “what a sweet girl she 
was ! And where is she now ? Philip, do you know 
her?” 

“Ho, I never saw her.” 

“What!” interposed Barbara, “never saw Lucy Wil- 
merding ? How strange ! ” 

Barbara thought that people who had the opportunity 
of dwelling in the great world had no excuse for not mak- 
ing each other’s acquaintance, so that everybody should 
know everybody else. 

“ Philip, have you a brother ?” asked Mrs. Yail. 

“Ho.” 

“A sister ?” 

“Ho.” 

“ Then Barbara must be your sister, as I your mother. 
But, 0 Philip, nothing can make up for a mother in her 
grave ! What a blow to your poor father ! ” 


HEART TO HEART. 


299 


“ Yes, it turned his hair white in a single night ; when 
he comes you will see his locks of snow.” 

“ Did Barbara tell you how long we drifted at sea ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ And how at last we landed here ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ And how my husband always felt sure that your father 
would never rest till he had found and rescued us ? ” 

“Yes, she has told me all.” 

“ Philip, is it not a strange tale ? ” 

“It makes me think,” said he, “of Prospero and 
Miranda.” 

Dr. Yail, who meanwhile was hastening homeward from 
his observations, passed by Jezebel gathering fruits, but 
did not see her. 

“ 0, Massa Yail !” cried Bel, trying to attract the hur- 
ried man’s attention, “I liab seen de cornin’ ob de king- 
dom. Pete, he hab come. I seed him a walkin’ over 
dese yer fields. He ain’t black no more — he’s white. He 
was dressed in blue like de sky, and was covered all over wid 
gilt spots like de stars. Yes, my boy Pete, he’s now white 
as de whitest — fair as de fairest. A little while ago he 
went a walkin’ along dese yer bushes. He nebber stopped 
or turned round — nebber saw his mudder — nebber said a 
word to nobody — -but went right tru dem dar trees, and 
was gone. 0 Massa Yail, somefin’ good is agwine to happen. 
What’s de good book say ? ‘ Lift up your heads for de 

day ob your redemption draweth nigh.’ ” 

Dr. Yail, who had gone further and further out of 
Jezebel’s hearing, now leaped at a bound to the door- 
step. 

“Mary,” he exclaimed, and his piercing voice went 
ahead of him into the house, “ I missed the little boat ; 
her crew pulled back again to the steamer ; but I hailed 
the steamer, and received an answer ; the boat is return- 


300 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


ing ; I have run hither to announce to you the news, and 
must go back immediately to the south beach.” 

Whereupon, without entering the house, he was about 
to turn away from the threshold. 

“Father, dear father,” exclaimed Barbara, “step inside 
just a moment before you go.” 

Dr. Yail then entered, and beheld the strange guest. 
Philip, without speaking, bowed with courtliness. The 
spectacle — seen, as it was, in the dim light of stained-glass 
windows — at first smote Rodney Yail as an illusion — as 
one of the many fancies or hallucinations that had given 
him a momentary pleasure and an after-disappoint- 
ment ; for he had often built an air-castle with noth- 
ing but a bubble for a foundation, and seen the whole 
fabric dissolve to a single moist drop in each of his 
eyes. 

“ 0, no,” thought Rodney, glancing a second time at 
the princely young figure, “ it is no illusion — it is he — 
just as I left him — the years have stamped no wrinkle on 
his brow — it is the friend of my youth — it is he indeed — 
the same as of old.’*- 

This train of thought passed through Dr. Yail’s mind 
with the swiftness of a ray of light — too swiftly for him to 
be entirely conscious that he had stopped to think at all — 
for at the next instant his arms were flung round the 
young man, and he exclaimed, 

“0 Oliver Chantilly, my friend! my friend ! — I knew 
you would search for us— I knew you would find us ! 0 

Oliver, my noble friend ! Welcome to my house — my 
heart — my soul.” 

Dr. Yail held Philip in the affectionate imprisonment of 
an embrace meant for his father. 

“I am not Oliver Chantilly,” replied Philip, “lam 
his son ! ” 

“ What ! ” exclaimed Dr. Yail. “ His son ? Then 


HEART TO HEART. 


301 


Philip, you are from head to foot the image of your 
father. ” 

“It is an honor,” replied Philip, “to be so like my 
father as to be mistaken for him by his best beloved 
friend.” 

“ Philip, is your father with you ? ” 

“ He is not with me at this moment,” replied Philip, 
quietly. 

“ Where is he ? ” 

“ He is there ! ” and Philip pointed down through the 
vista in the trees to a boat just then approaching the 
shore. 

“Is your father among those men ?” 

“ Yes.” 

Like an arrow from a bow, Rodney Yail fled away from 
the house toward the boat. 

J ezebel then entered, bringing a basket of fruit on her 
arm, and not at first perceiving the stranger, exclaimed, 

“ Lamkin, what’s got into Massa Yail ? He’s a run- 
nin’ down de hill like de Prodigal son when de swine was 
after him. His heels am kickin’ up de dust, and his hat 
has agwine sailin’ off his head and cotched on a pine- 
apple bush. Why — lawks a-massy ! ” — (noticing Philip 
in the room and holding up both her hands) — “ Is it de 
angel ob de Lord ? or is it my boy Pete ? Which ? 
What’s de good book say ? ‘ Watch, for de kingdom ob 

hebben is at han’. ’ ” 

“ Philip,” said Barbara, “ this is dear old Bel, who has 
taken care of me ever since I was born.” 

Philip bowed in acknowledgment of that servant’s 
faithful service. 

Jezebel would have accepted Philip on the spot as a 
veritable angel, if he had proclaimed himself such ; or she 
would have taken him for Pete transfigured, if he had 
given her his word for it ; yet it was difficult for her to 


302 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


believe that be was neither the one nor the other, but 
only a common man. 

Beaver was the only ungrateful member of the party ; 
he greatly dishonored himself by a number of uncompan- 
ionable growls ; but dogs, like children, never behave at 
their best in company. 

Mary Vail, whom the great excitement had already 
prostrated, reclined in her easy-chair, leaving Barbara and 
Philip on the door-step, — Barbara looking through the 
spy-glass at the distant scene on the beach, and Philip 
looking at Barbara from a nearer point of view. 

“Philip, is that old man in the boat your father?” 
asked Barbara. 

“He is not old,” replied Philip, “only white-haired.” 

Barbara, who still stood surveying the far-off spectacle 
through the glass, remarked, 

“Philip, your father has just jumped ashore. He and 
my father are locked in each other’s arms — and all the 
men are waving their hats and cheering. Hark ! Do you 
not hear their voices ? ” 

It was a shout three times repeated, and the pleasant 
noise came floating up through the autumnal air. 

“0 the welcome sound of the voices of our fellow- 
men ! ” exclaimed Mary. 

Barbara’s interest was intense. Her eyes were riveted 
upon the new-comers. The world was at her feet. 

“ They are drawing the boat’s anchor up the beach,” 
said she. “ They are assembling in the shade of the trees. 
They are standing in a straight line.” 

She worked the glass up and down, and brought them 
near or pushed them back at pleasure. 

“ What beautiful blue shirts and white caps ! ” she ex- 
claimed. “ Mother, the sailors wear their collars folded 
down, just like Madame D’Arblay’s morning-dress.” 

Barbara’s gaze went from face to face. 


HEART TO HEART. 


303 


“ What a difference in their expression ! ” she cried. 

She had not dreamed that there could be such a variety. 
They were old and young — bearded and smooth — comely 
and uncouth. Some looked happy and radiant ; some 
careworn and indifferent ; some stolid and sluggish. 

This disappointed her, for she thought that the privilege 
which they enjoyed of living among human beings ought 
to irradiate every countenance with gratitude. 

“ 0 mother, the men have gathered in a circle about my 
father, and he is shaking hands with them all — each in 
turn. He is taller than any of the rest — except Philip’s 
father. Philip, who is that man in the blue coat ? ” 

“It is Lieut. Cammeyer.” 

“ What a noble man,” said she, “how splendid ! I am 
sure he must be brave and true.” 

Philip pricked up his ears at this panegyric. Is it pos- 
sible that these words just a little piqued his Royal High- 
ness ? He would not have acknowledged to himself the 
soft impeachment. So it must be here acknowledged for 
him by a more impartial judgment. 

Barbara, watching Lieut. Cammeyer, said, 

“ He is plucking a small white flower from a vine and 
putting it into his button-hole. But I can give him more 
beautiful flowers than that. He shall have his choice of 
all that grow on the island.” 

His Royal Highness, the Prince, pricked up his ears 
again. 

“ I suppose,” said he, “that after Lieut. Cammeyer has 
made the first choice, I may have leave to make the 
second.” 

Barbara caught his hand, pressed it, and looked into his 
eyes with a glance that shot a sunbeam into his heart. 

“ Philip,” said she, “ you shall have more than you can 
carry in your hands — more than your arms can hold. You 
may fill your boat with them.” 


304 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


With frank and strong natures, love generally works its 
magic boldly and without delay. But as yet, Philip and 
Barbara had done no love-making ; at least, not in the 
ordinary sense of that word. They had not even kissed 
each other — except as 

“ Palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss.” 

They had not whispered to each other the word love. 
Their thoughts had been too novel and mysterious to find 
expression in love’s common language. What is usually 
meant by love is the passion of two souls who sweetly 
barter with each other for mutual possession of their 
mortal tenements, to have and to hold. But the souls of 
Barbara and Philip were still flying too high in the clouds 
and were too near their native spiritual realm to think as 
yet of bringing their love to 

“ A local habitation and a name.” 

The first touch of ordinary love which Philip felt for 
Barbara was the tingling jealousy pricked into him by the 
little thorn on the rose which Lieut. Cammeyer plucked. 

“ What if she should fall in love with Cammeyer ! ” 
thought he ; and the thought became a bitterness to him 
in a moment. 

Love at first sight is common ; but love before any sight 
at all is rare. 

This strange, high, ethereal love— which had not hith- 
erto thought of giving itself a name — not even love’s own 
name — was thus far, until this jealous moment, the love 
that Philip had for Barbara. 

But if Philip’s love for Barbara had hitherto resided in 
heaven with that angel, it was now preparing to come 
down to tarry on earth with that woman. 

The starting-points from which each now approached 


HEAET TO HEAKT. 


305 


the other in plain and simple love were not so widely- 
sundered as might at first be supposed. 

If a man moyes among a multitude of fair women with- 
out bowing his heart in surrender to any one of them, be- 
cause of his supreme allegiance to some other image afar 
off, — which was the case with Philip ; and if a woman is 
hidden from all men’s sight, and sweetly enchained to a 
perpetual thought of one man’s face, — which was the case 
with Barbara ; — it is not singular, after all, that the two 
should meet on terms not greatly different ; and it was in- 
evitable that each should fall in love with the other ; not 
only in poetic fancy, but in living reality ; for their two 
hearts were fresh, whole, and virgin : and in such natures 
the instinct of love works like the lightnings of heaven — 
illumining the whole soul so that no nook or cranny of 
its realm escapes the electric gleam and heat. 

The young sailor, who that morning would have made 
any sacrifice to ambition, was now ready at noon to sacri- 
fice ambition itself to love. 

“Come, Barbara, show me your garden. I must have 
my flower before Cammeyer comes ; and he must see that 
I have a sweeter one than his.” 

“Dear Philip, the whole island is my garden; there are 
flowers enough in it to crown all the conquerors in the 
world, and to bestrew the paths of all maidens on their 
wedding-march to church.” 

“If,” said Philip, “you have lived all your life aloof 
from the world, how can you know so much about its 
wedded maids and other conquerors ? ” 

“ I have read of them in romances.” 

“ Do you know, then,” he asked, “ the story of Proser- 
pine gathering flowers ? — 

“ * Herself a fairer flower ? ’ — 

You are Proserpine — fairer than your flowers.” 


306 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Any woman,” said Barbara, “ is fairer than a flower. 
I don’t know why that verse was written. Not any flower 
of this island is so fair as my mother’s face.” 

“ Nor half so fair,” he added, “ as your own.” 

Barbara did not treat this tribute as a piece of flattery, 
for she did not detect the gallantry that inspired it ; and 
yet, at the same time, her desire for personal beauty was 
working within her, for she asked Philip frankly, 

“ Have you seen many ladies ? ” 

“ Thousands.” 

“ Am I like them ? ” 

He smiled at her directness, and was about to make a 
gay and gallant answer ; but his sincere heart smote him 
into reverence for her simplicity, and he replied, 

“ Barbara, you are a beautiful woman, worthy to walk 
in a king’s palace.” 

With a sudden tear in each eye, Barbara replied, 

“ Then I am grateful to heaven for making me so. My 
mother and father call me fair. But then, I have read 
that parents are blind to their children’s defects. If you 
think me comely — since you are disinterested — I shall have 
a true right to believe it.” 

Philip’s heart was now glowing with a less celestial yet 
with a more human love than he had hitherto felt for his 
soul’s idol. 

Never once had Philip, during the years of his image- 
worship, thought of Barbara as his wife ; for this bright 
particular star and wandering spirit seemed to him to 
dwell in a heaven where there was neither marrying nor 
giving in marriage. 

But ever since Barbara had complimented Cammeyer, 
Philip kept saying to himself, 

“ What if this cold-blooded man should win this woman 
for his own ? No, this shall never be. Barbara is mine 
—mine only — mine against all the world.” 


HEART TO HEART. 


307 


The next step in love’s argument was easily taken by 
Philip’s logical brain. 

Barbara, to be his, must be what ? 

“Why,” said be to bis listening and agitated heart, 
“ she must be my wife.” 

Strange as it may seem, this thought was so perfectly 
fresh and new to Philip that it gave to his blood a delight- 
ful wildness, and sent it coursing through his veins with 
an ecstatic joy. 

“I will take the first step now and here,” thought he, 
recurring to his favorite Napoleonic maxim that a moment 
lost is an opportunity for misfortune — “I will tell her that 
I love her. But I will not appeal to her sense of obliga- 
tion toward her rescuer, nor presume upon her gratitude 
for her restoration to the world. She shall have no other 
reason to love than love itself.” 

Philip was full of the graciousness of high breeding, 
and had the courtly manners of a princely mind. 

“ Barbara,” said he, “ this is the proudest day of my 
life.” 

Philip chose a rather commonplace expression, but Bar- 
bara had never heard it before. 

“The proudest?” she repeated, feeling in herself a 
pride at hearing him say it ; “ you who have travelled 
through the world — you who have been in great cities — you 
who have fought on battle-ships, — 0 Philip, how can you 
pass all other days by and call this the proudest of all ? ” 

“ Barbara, let me speak my heart at once ; I am a sailor, 
and that’s a sailor’s way. This is the day for which all 
other days were made, for this day has brought me to the 
Coromandel — and to you. Ever since I first knew of your 
existence, I have worshipped you with all my soul ; now 
that I have seen your face, I love you with all my heart.” 

“ Love ? ” inquired Barbara, with a palpitating incre- 
dulity. 


308 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“Yes,” said Philip. “Love. Suffer me to use that 
supreme word. I love you ! ” 

“ 0 Philip ! ” she exclaimed, her eyes afire with light, 
“ you love me ? 0 God, can this be possible ? Philip, is 
it loye ? — no, it cannot be ! — no, no, no ! Have you come 
out of the world to bring your heart to me? No ! Have 
you seen thousands of ladies and yet have saved your love 
for me ? Philip, why do I tremble ? — I am dizzy— my 
head reels ! ” 

She sank down on a mossy stone. Philip sat beside 
her. A look beamed in his eyes which certified to every 
word that he had said. Barbara saw — felt — knew that 
Philip had spoken the solemn truth. 

They were under a convolvulus vine ; Barbara trembled 
like one of its leaves, and blushed like one of its flowers. 

A dash of hot blood mounted up to the roots of hei 
hair. She was covered with crimson — but not from shame 
or confusion — only from pride. She bowed her head be- 
tween her hands as if to press her throbbing temples 
together to keep them from bursting. The flush went 
creeping round her white neck. Tears, which had no 
drop of grief to embitter them, trickled down her cheeks. 
All the love-tales that she had read and learned by heart 
went singing through her mind like sweetly-remembered 
tunes. 

“0 Philip,” she asked, “is love such a fierce fever? 
Love is rest — but this is tumult. Love is peace — but this 
is tempest. ” 

Leaping then to her feet — her hair hanging down be- 
hind her back like an angelic wing ready to be lifted in 
flight— she exclaimed, 

“ Why have you disturbed — shaken — terrified me so ? ” 

She quivered from head to foot with unrestrained feel- 
ing ; she kept nothing back ; she cloaked nothing with a 
polite disguise. Her maimer was so wholly unconven- 


HEART TO HEART. 


309 


tional — so altogether natural — as to appear to Philip to be 
partly supernatural. It was as if Nature were returning 
to the primitive ideal of beauty and truth. 

Philip met frankness with frankness. 

“Barbara,” said he, with a half hush in his voice, and 
holding out his hand, “it is a sailor’s hand. It has put 
itself to rough uses ; — it has steered ships — it has fired 
guns — it has begrimed itself with the smoke of battle. 
But it has also done gentle acts ; — it has patted the cheeks 
of children — it has planted flowers on graves — it has 
stroked the tresses of my mother, alive and dead. Yes, 
it has touched many things rough and soft — rough duties 
and soft delights ; — but, 0 Barbara, this rude hand of 
mine holds the whole world now in its palm when it clasps 
yours to-day.” 

This was all that Philip said, but he caught up Bar- 
bara’s hand and kissed it as if he would never let it go 
from his lips. 

Just then Lieut. Cammeyer, with a rose-bud in his 
button-hole, came upon the scene, and, bowing politely to 
both, remarked, 

“ I beg your pardon, Lieutenant, but I am sent to sum- 
mon the lady and yourself to the house.” 


CHAPTER XXI. 


INTERCHANGE, 


HE summons to Philip and Barbara, which Cammeyer 



A. conveyed, was to a repast that Jezebel had prepared 
in honor of the distinguished guests. It was spread on a 
rustic table under the trees in front of the Hermitage. An 
embroidered table-cloth — a relic of Francis Garcelon’s 
household — gave to the frugal entertainment a sump- 
tuous air. 

Mrs. Yail, fatigued by the morning’s excitement, found 
herself unable to preside as hostess, and resigned that 
office and its honors to Barbara, who accepted the trust 
with blushing diffidence. 

“ It is the first time in my life,” said the abashed maiden, 
“that I have seen strange faces at our table. I wish my 
mother could occupy her usual place, for she was bred to 
the arts of hospitality, and has not forgotten (I am sure) 
how to practice them toward such welcome guests.” 

Eodney Yail opened a bottle of the old hermit’s legacy, 
and each quaffed the soft, pale, amber-like wine. 

Capt. Chantilly held up his glass so that the light shone 
through it. 

“This,” said he, “is as pure and gentle as a woman.” 

“It is fit then,” said Philip, “for pledging the health 
of pure and gentle women. Here’s to the daughter, to the 
mother, and also” — looking at Jezebel — “to the grand- 
mother : — three generations of virtue and goodness.” 


310 


INTERCHANGE. 


311 


“ Let it be my part,” said Cammeyer, speaking in a 
formal tone, “ since the ladies have been mentioned, to 
add the health of the gentlemen present — Dr. Vail and his 
two friends, Capt. and Lfeut. Chantilly.” 

The three gentlemen, thus honored, bowed their ac- 
knowledgments. 

“ This must be the custom that I have so often read of,” 
said Barbara, “ the giving of toasts at banquets. Do women 
give any ? Must I f” 

“ Yes,” replied Capt. Chantilly, “ we wait for yours.” 

Barbara, with natural dignity and fulness of feeling, said 
simply, 

“Dear friends, I am not versed in this etiquette, but I 
hope it is proper for me to say — for, 0, I say it with my 
whole heart — may heaven’s blessing sweetly reward our 
deliverers, one and all ; ” — and she turned toward Philip 
with a look that seemed to add, “ and Philip Chantilly in 
particular.” 

At this moment Beaver showed a disposition to partake 
of the feast as one of the guests. For this purpose, he 
stubbornly braved what he regarded as a severe expression 
on the countenance of J ezebel. But the old woman’s frown 
existed only in the dog’s imagination, for to human eyes 
her face shone with smiles. She waited on the guests not 
like a servant but like a mother. 

“My boy Pete,” said she, “he’s a man grown. Pete 
Bamley. Hab any of you ebber seed him ? He’s one ob 
de sailor men. He shoots de big guns. Dunno how dat 
boy hab ebber got along — ain’t had no mudder to look after 
his shirts and tend to de buttons. But I specs de Lord 
takes care o’ Pete’s clo’s. De Lord, dat made man, knows 
how to do his washin’ and mendin’. What’s de good book 
say ? ‘ When dy fader and mudder forsake dee, den de 

Lord will take deb up,’ How Pete hab jist got to pin de 
Lord right down to His precious promise. Show me de 


312 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


promise — and I will show you de blessin’. f Hab I promised 
and shall I not perform ? ’ sef de Lord. Bless de Lord. 
His mercies am like dese yer dew-drops — new ebery mornin’ 
and fresh ebery ebenin’.” 

“ On my ship,” said Oapt. Chantilly, “ is a young gunner 
whose name is Pete — but it is not Peter Bamley — it is Peter 
Collins.” 

“Dat’s somebody else’s Pete, — not mine,” said Jezebel, 
with a sigh of resignation — as much as to say that her 
motherly heart would like to beat against the breast of 
her only son once again, but not unless it should be the 
Lord’s will. 

Rodney Vail and his wife had previously made inquiries 
concerning their aged parents, whom they could hardly 
have expected to find alive, and who, indeed, true to this 
sad expectation, had been laid at rest a number of years 
before. 

“ Alas,” thought Barbara, tenderly (and this thought still 
lay like a shadow on her joy), “I shall never see my grand- 
parents — only their graves.” 

The conversation — wandering from family affairs — then 
touched on a hundred different subjects. 

“ Tell me, Oliver,” said Rodney, “what prompted you 
to go back to the naval service ? ” 

“Because,” he answered, “our country is at war.” 

“ What, have not the Mexicans been conquered by this 
time ? ” 

As Dr. Vail had left his country while it was at war with 
Mexico, he imagined that the same conflict was still in 
progress. He was astounded when told of a civil war in 
the United States. 

“ Who is at the head of the government ? ” he asked. 

“ President Lincoln,” replied Capt. Chantilly. 

“ Lincoln ? That name is new among the statesmen of 
our country. Who commands the army ? ” 


INTERCHANGE. 


313 


“ General Grant.” 

“ Grant ? That name is new too. Who is chief in the 
navy ? ” 

“Admiral Farragut. ” 

“ Farragut ? Still another new name ! Is the country, 
then, given up to strangers ? Do I know nobody who is 
left ? What of Winfield Scott ? ” 

“ He is dead.” 

“ Daniel Webster ? ” 

“ Dead.” 

“ Henry Clay ? ” 

“ Dead.” 

“ Ah, me,” exclaimed Rodney, “ Time’s scythe has cut 
a devastating swathe. Is everybody dead ? Who then is 
married ? ” 

“ Tom Thumb,” ejaculated Philip. 

“Dat’s de same ole way ob de world,” remarked Jezebel^ 
“de great men — dey is always a (lyin’; and de little men — 
dey is always a marryin’. Dat’s what makes it so hard for 
de women. How dar was Bruno. Did you know my man 
Bruno ? He was a lazybones — always a sleepin’ in de sun. 
How my boy, Pete, he was proud and hard workin’, and 
allers full ob fret and shame against Bruno. I allers 
b’liebed dat de Lord took away ole Bruno on puppus dat 
Pete might hole his own head up high in de world and 
not hab eberybody a twittin’ him ’bout de ole man.” 

After Jezebel ended her eulogy of Pete, Rodney inquired 
concerning the state of things in Europe. 

“Europe,” said Oliver, “has had a succession of bloody 
wars. First Russia fought France and England — that was 
in the Crimea. Then France overthrew Austria — that was 
at Solferino. Then Prussia gave Austria a second whipp- 
ing— that was at Sadowa. Then England had a war in 
India and another in China. But our own civil war has 
outreddened them all in human blood.” 


314 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Have there been, then, no arts of peace during all these 
years ? ” 

“Yes, you cannot guess what new telegraphic wire has 
been laid ? Try.” 

“ Well, from Boston to Albany.” 

“ Ah, sir, from America to Europe — yes, it is a slender 
cord under the sea, giving instantaneous communication 
between New York and London.” 

Rodney Vail’s incredulity needed the honest look 
of Oliver Chantilly to confirm so astounding a state- 
ment. 

“ What new ideas are now exciting the world ?” 

“ Well, Pm not much of a scholar,” said Oliver. “ Let 
me see. Did the human race, when you were acquainted 
with it, humbly trace its pedigree to the dust of the earth, 
— or did it proudly look higher to find its ancestor in a 
grinning ape on a tree ? Then too, we used to ponder in 
college on the great opinion of Socrates that the body is 
one thing, the soul another — the one mortal, the other 
immortal. But our modern wise men proclaim the body 
and soul one and the same, and argue that when the one 
dies the other dies with it. Perhaps, if you had remained 
among these philosophers you would have walked in their 
ways. Who knows hut that you owe to the wreck of your 
ship the saving of your soul ? ” 

“ Who,” inquired Rodney, “ are the rising scholars and 
writers — the poets, for instance ? ” 

“You must ask Philip,” said Oliver; “he is a dreamer ; 
he reads and muses hour by hour ; he knows the poets. 
But the old Laureate — your early favorite — is dead. He 
died six or seven years ago.” 

“ What, dear old Wordsworth ? ” exclaimed Dr. Yail. 
“ I saw him once at Rydal Mount. Wise, pure, penetrat- 
ing spirit ! He must have left the world better than he 
found it.” 


INTERCHANGE. 


315 


“ One of your German professors has gone too.” 

“ Who ? ” 

“ Carl Ritter, taking with him his art of geography to 
map the undiscovered country from whose bourne no 
traveler returns.” 

“And Humboldt?” 

“ He died still earlier.” 

“Is Europe,” asked Rodney, “growing Republican or 
Cossack ? ” 

“The Cossack himself,” replied Oliver, “is now the 
best Republican in it, for the Czar has set free the serfs, 
and has been followed by the American President in set- 
ting free the slaves.” 

“ 0 Barbara,” exclaimed Rodney, “ how much of the 
history of the world we have missed ! — Oliver, what of the 
water-works at Cape Town ? ” 

“ Well, they give drink to the thirsty — they feed the 
canal — and they sprinkle the streets.” 

“ By the way,” asked Dr. Vail, “ when you spoke of Capt. 
Lane, you did not mention what had become of him ?” 

“ Lane,” cried Oliver, “ has gone to the devil— if there 
is a devil — which, it is now said, there isn’t.” 

“ What’s dat ? ” exclaimed Jezebel. “ Ain’t no devil ? 
Den what’s become ob him ? He used to be in de world 
when I was dar. Guess he ain’t dead yit. What’s de 
good book say ? ‘ And Satan came also among ’em.’ 

Now folks know well enough dat when de debbil once 
comes among ’em, he never goes away again.” 

“ What is Lane doing ? ” inquired Rodney. 

“ He is in the Confederate service — a traitor to his flag, 
as he had previously proved a traitor to his friends.” 

“ What news from Sir John Franklin ?” 

“ As yet none.” 

“ When we go away from here,” asked Barbara, “ what 
is to become of the Coromandel ? ” 


316 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ I shall tow her to Barbados/’ replied Capt. Chantilly. 

“ After we get to Barbados,” asked Barbara, “what 
shall we find ? Is the world there ? I want to see the 
world.” 

“ I was never in Barbados but once,” said Philip, “ and 
that was when Forsyth and I were midshipmen on the 
Fleetwing. We had a half-day to see the whole island.” 

“ 0 tell me what yon saw,” inquired Barbara. “ Is 
Bridgetown as beautiful as Paris ? Lucy Wilmerding 
writes that Paris is paradise.” 

“In Barbados,” said Philip, “you will see Trafalgar 
Square, and Lord Nelson’s monument — which we sailors 
envy ; you will see St. Anne’s castle ; you will see the 
little convent of St. Carliola, with its Sisters of Mercy ; 
you will see ants’-eggs or ground-pearls, which ladies work 
into purses, and string into necklaces ; you will see grou- 
grou worms and mosquitos ; and then, after you are tired 
of all these sights, great and small, you will see the 
Tamaqua weighing anchor in the harbor to take you to 
your own land.” 

“ Now,” said Barbara, “ tell me of Cape Town ; ” for, 
to Barbara, Cape Town had always been one of the chief 
capitals of the earth — an ideal and sacred city. She had 
always pictured Philip as dwelling there. It was a Jeru- 
salem or Mecca to which her mind had made many a pil- 
grimage. 

Philip Chantilly, though given to poetic feeling, and not 
averse to an exercise of the imagination, did not paint a 
brilliant picture of the ancient city of the Dutch boors in 
South Africa. 

But he told Barbara how Table Mountain rose majes- 
tically, with its flat top overspread by a cloud as with a 
cloth ; how the Malay women, with their black hair and 
brown babies, formed a phalanx of clothes-wasliers who 
washed the city’s clothes in the neighboring mountain 


INTERCHANGE. 


317 


streams ; how the fashionable families thought it a hand- 
some ornament of the dinner-table to put a liye chameleon 
on the bread-tray to snap at the flies ; and how the scarlet 
heath and blue oxalis grew in the burial-ground where 
Rosa Chantilly lay. 

The discourse then took a sombre shade, and touched on 
Oliver’s bereavement. 

“ Ah, Rodney,” said he, “ what a contrast between your 
family and mine ! Your wife, always an invalid, has gone 
through trials enough to kill a ship’s crew, and yet she 
comes out alive and well ; while Rosa — the picture of health 
— was suddenly blighted like a flower. Compare yourself 
with me. You are full of nerve and hope, but I am a 
wreck. Ah, Rodney, there is but one love — one grief — 
one life. I have had all these already. You, in the mid- 
dle of life, are just at the beginning of it ; but I have 
already passed through the beginning — the middle — the 
end — the all.’’ 

“But, Oliver,” interposed Dr. Vail, “you have Philip.” 

“No, Rodney, we have no treasure till we lose it. I 
never knew what it was to have a wife until I lost her. If 
I should lose Philip — if a rebel cannon ball should carry 
him off — then I might understand what it was to have 
a son, but not till then.” 

Barbara gave a low cry at Capt. Chantilly’s allusion to 
Philip’s possible death. The startled maid turned notice- 
ably pale. Cannon-shots had been rather glorious to her 
fancy until that moment, but she now instantly changed 
her romantic opinion of those fatal missiles. 

“ I wish,” said Barbara, “ I could learn something of Lucy 
Wilmerding.” 

This remark made Lieut. Cammeyer wince, but he 
maintained his composure to outward view. 

“I have heard,” said Philip, “that Lucy’s father lost 
his fortune, and that his daughter, in consequence, lost her 


318 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


lover. That renegade lover, I understand, is in our navy. 

> I should expect such a man to prove a renegade every- 
where.” 

Cammeyer scowled, hut did not otherwise betray himself. 
He had no reason to suppose that Philip meant to be per- 
sonal. Indeed the Chantillys were wholly ignorant of 
Cammeyer’s relation to Lucy. 

“This reminds me,” said Oliver, “that seventeen years 
ago on one stormy morning in Cape Town, when I was 
waiting for the Coromandel to arrive, there came a letter 
addressed to Mrs. Yail in my wife’s care. I judged from 
the seal — for it had the letters L. W. on it — that it was 
from the Wilmerdings. That letter was laid away for you 
by Rosa ; and Philip has it now on board the Tamaqua, in 
a box of souvenirs of his mother. ” 

“How glad I shall be,” thought Barbara, “to read 
another letter from Lucy Wilmerding.” 

As the feast progressed, Beaver took a more and more 
distinguished part in it, for not only did Jezebel relax her 
severity, but Philip fostered the dog’s intrusion by offering 
him an occasional toothsome scrap. Barbara felt that 
every courtesy shown to Beaver was a grace to herself. The 
dog never relished a lunch more in his life than on this 
proud occasion. But like all extreme happiness, it was too 
fleet to last. 

“Beaver,” exclaimed Jezebel, pouncing upon him, “git 
away ! — off wid you ! What’s de good book say ? ‘ De 

dogs shall eat ob de crumbs dat fall from de massa’s table.’ 
But it don’t say dat one dog shall eat all de meat in a 
whole tin can.” 

After the repast, Capt. Chantilly took a look at the 
weather. 

“ The sky,” said he, “ looks fickle, and may prove treach- 
erous. Philip, if I stay a little longer ashore, you must 
go back to the Tamaqua. Cammeyer, go with Philip — 


INTERCHANGE. 


319 


leave him on the steamer — and then bring back the boat 
with Robson and Carter, to stay on the island to-night.” 

It had long been agreed between Philip and his father 
that the lieutenant should never prefer any request to the 
captain, based on a presumed favoritism of father to son. 

But it was galling to Philip to go aboard and stay there, 
while Cammeyer was to come ashore. 

Not that Philip imagined Cammeyer capable of dispos- 
sessing him in Barbara’s mind, but only that a shadow 
would be cast on the happiest day of his life. 

Had the father known or suspected what was passing in 
the son’s heart, he would have gone to the ship himself, 
leaving his son to be the sole arbiter of his own happiness. 

How often do those nearest to us inflict on us uncon- 
sciously the greatest wounds which we have to bear in 
life! 

Philip, after a ceremonious and unsatisfactory leave- 
taking of Barbara — which was vexatiously in the presence 
of the rest — went to the shore — whistled a shrill summons 
to the scattered men — called them together — stepped into 
the boat with Cammeyer — and put ofl toward the ship. 

It was noticeable, as he sat in the boat’s stern, that he 
was silent and moody. 

“ I will send back,” thought he, “ a little packet to Bar- 
bara, which Cammeyer shall carry without knowing what 
it contains.” 

Going into his quarters, Philip opened his writing-desk 
and wrote a letter to Barbara. 

He then prepared for her a little package, consisting of 
many safe wrappings round a box containing a gold ring. 

This letter and this package he tied together, addressing 
the joint bundle to 

Miss Barbara Tail , 

Fortunate Isle, 

West Indies. 


320 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


The little packet, thus superscribed, was enclosed in 
another addressed to his father. 

Cammeyer, with a hamper of provisions, now sat in the 
stern of the boat, waiting Philip’s order. 

“ Here’s a trifle which I will ask you to carry to my 
father,” said Philip, tossing it down to him with an as- 
sumed nonchalance. 

Cammeyer caught it, and the boat was off the next 
moment. 

No sooner had the oarsmen got under swift headway 
toward the shore than the wind began to blow. 

The Tamaqua immediately weighed anchor and stood 
prudently out to sea. 

Cammeyer, on landing in the cove, was met by Capt. 
Chantilly, who ordered him to take the hamper of provisions 
to the Coromandel, and to make himself and his men 
comfortable on board for the night, — as a storm was 
brewing. 

“ Nevertheless,” said the captain, “ I don’t think it will 
be more than a little puff, bringing a dash of rain and end- 
ing in a fog.” 

“It looks a little threatening,” remarked Cammeyer, 
“ and I am glad the Tamaqua has put to sea.” 

Cammeyer’s gladness was not because the ship was putt- 
ing herself beyond a lee-shore, but because Philip was 
going into an enforced exile from Barbara. 

Philip’s letter to his father was this : 

My Dear Father— 

I would give ten years of my life to be with Barbara this evening. 
But you suspected no such desire on my part. So I shall do my duty 
without a murmur. 

The barometer is at 29, and I expect a blow. 

I shall go at once to Barbados for a harbor, and return when the 
gale is over. 

Commend me to the noblest woman that either you or I have met 


IHTERCHAN-GE. 


331 


since we parted with her only equal — whom we lament with mutual 
tears. 

Your affectionate son, 

Philip Chantilly. 

The above Tetter was accompanied with one from Philip 
to Barbara — which Capt. Chantilly bore to that lady forth- 
with. 

She was standing on a high bank under a cocoa-palm, 
looking at the departing steamer that was bearing away 
her lover. 

“ Miss Barbara,” said Capt. Chantilly, “ my neglectful 
son has forgotten to send you the letter from Lucy Wil- 
merding,.but has remembered to send you one from some- 
body else.” 

Saying which, and making a polite bow, he handed her 
Philip’s letter with a significant smile on his face, which 
she did not understand ; for Barbara was a simpleton in 
the ways of the world, and wholly ignorant of the 
merry meanings that sometimes glance from gentlemen’s 
eyes. 

“A letter forme ? ” she inquired. 

Barbara had never received a letter before, except such 
as she had written to herself ; and she now took this unex- 
pected and precious morsel as a bird takes a new-found 
grain of barley ; that is, she fled away with it. 

Heretofore Barbara had never experienced any delight 
which she was not willing to share with her father and 
mother, particularly with her mother — except only her 
most secret thoughts, and her most private image-worship. 

This letter — addressed to herself and no other person — 
she regarded as a very special secret of her own, which she 
could not share with anybody else, any more than she could 
divide with a friend the beating of her pulse. 

In civilized countries, the post flies by day and night, 
carrying letters to rich and poor ; but there had hitherto 


322 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


been nothing in civilization — or statesmanship — or the 
nineteenth century — or all combined — that had been able 
to deliver a letter to Barbara Vail. 

Barbara, on entering her chamber, shut the door and sat 
at her small stained-glass window, holding the letter, un- 
opened, in her hand. 

“ How strange to get a real letter ! ” she exclaimed. 
“ What a curiosity I — what a delight ! ” 

She held it up — she turned it over — she reflected it in 
the looking-glass — she handled and dandled it — she caress- 
ed and kissed it — she scrutinized the seal and its emblem 
— she wondered how other ladies felt on receiving letters — 
she speculated as to what might be its contents — she affect- 
ed a sweet ignorance as to who could have sent it — in 
short, she was so full of conflicting fancies respecting it 
that she laid it down without opening it, purely in order 
to enjoy for a few moments longer the luxury of suspense. 

“ Yes,” said she, as with a child’s glee over a gilded toy, 
“I have a letter, and it is mine ; I, Barbara Vail, of this 
island — the Fortunate Isle ; it is I who have it ; the letter 
is my own — addressed to nobody but me ; it is all for me 
— nobody else lias had it first ; it is a letter of which I do 
not know the contents — a letter which I have never read 
before ; it is the first letter of this real kind that I have 
ever had in my life. 0 what a mystery ! ” 

Then it seemed to her that the unbroken envelope w r as 
sacred, and ought not to be torn ; but she was puzzled to 
know how to get into a letter without opening it ; so she 
stole out to her mother with a question : 

“ Mother, if you should receive a letter sealed with 
wax, how would you open it ? ” 

“ Why, my daughter, I would break the seal.” 

“ What ! The pretty seal ? Surely the seal ought not 
to be broken. There must be some other way.” 

“ You ignorant puss,” said her mother smiling, “ when 


IKTEKCHAKGE. 


323 


I speak of breaking tlie seal, I do not mean taking a 
hammer and pounding the wax to powder. To say 
‘ break the seal 5 is a figure of speech. If you should liye 
to get a letter sealed with wax, you would not need to 
crush the seal. You would need only to tear or cut the 
envelope around the edge of the wax. What innocence ! ” 

Barbara went to her room thinking a letter such a 
precious thing that there ought to be some way of get- 
ting inside of it as into a human heart — without break- 
ing it. 

Then, with her scissors, she cut open the envelope deli- 
cately, and laid it away in her box of keepsakes. 

This done, she turned from the envelope to the letter. 

She ceremoniously unfolded the paper — the stiff, 
creamy paper — the crisp, gilt-edged paper. She was now 
ready to read its contents, but before beginning she 
paused and drew an excited breath. She experienced 
the premonitory rapture of a hungry pilgrim who is 
about to enter an open garden of strange fruits. Before 
she caught a single word of the writing, her face already 
glowed with anticipation of the happiness which her 
heart was about to harvest. 

She then pronounced the written words in a low, mur- 
muring, and musical voice, as follows : 


On Board the Tam aqua, Sept. 19, 1864 — 5 p.m. 

My Dear Barbara — 

Hitherto I have loved no woman save my matchless mother, who 
lies in hallowed earth at Cape Town. 

Enclosed is a withered flower that I plucked in its bloom from her 

grave. 

You will find in the little jewel-box, accompanying this note, a ring 
she wore. It has never been on any other woman’s hand. If you 
will put it on yours,— in honor of this day’s meeting,— you will 
render to her memory an homage which you alone are pure and beau- 
tiful enough to pay. 


324 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


A storm impends, and the Tamaqua must quit the coast. I shall 
steam to Barbados, and ride out the gale in Carlisle Bay. My return 
will be as soon as wind and wave will permit. It would be sooner — 
defying storm and sea— if I could follow my heart’s wishes but I 
command a ship that commands me. 

This absence pricks me as with a poniard and makes my heart 
bleed. 

Ever since I kissed your hand to-day, I have felt it at my lips — as 
if a rose-leaf had blown up against them and softly lodged there. 

So I dare to kiss it again and again, without fear and without re- 
buke. 

May heaven bless its fairest angel on earth ! 

This is the prayer of 

Your true lover, 

Philip Chantilly. 

If an arrow could enter a dove’s breast carrying honey 
and balm instead of poison and pain, it would haye been 
like this sweet dart that touched Barbara to her heart’s 
core with delight. 

She read the letter oyer and over — a dozen times ; she 
put it back into the envelope, and took it out again ; she 
re-examined the seal with her most admiring glance ; she 
went through the process of receiving the letter afresh, 
pretending not to know its contents. 

At last, putting down the letter, she caught up her 
hand-glass, and, gazing at herself for a moment, threw 
away the little mirror with a proud scorn, and exclaimed, 

“ Farewell, hTarcissa, I have a new friend ; I have 
Philip. I can do without you. Narcissa, farewell.” 

Barbara did not stop to reflect that Narcissa would 
hardly be content to remain absent from her for a long 
time. Indeed, the probability was strong that, notwith- 
standing this rather uncivil parting of two old friends 
under a temporary sense of mutual disparagement, they 
would speedily renew their old companionship, and the 
two beauties would again be smilingly comparing their 
rival charms in the same glass. 


INTERCHANGE. 


325 


Barbara fell to kissing the letter, which kissed her in 
return. 

“I may kiss Philip’s letter,” she said, “ and yet I haye 
never kissed Philip. But Philip kissed my hand — so I 
will kiss his handwriting. What is his handwriting but 
his hand ? I will kiss his name — his name is his very self.” 

She sat in her griffin-clawed chair, gazing at the stream- 
ing and changing lights that came from a lurid and storm- 
threatening sunset. 

The thoughtful maid, mindful how the Coromandel had 
once been wrecked, now sent up her heart to heaven in a 
passionate prayer that no harm might come to the great- 
hearted sailor — the dauntless hero — the princely lover who 
was then rolling about in his rocking ship, and whose 
enshrined image was heaving still more tumultuously in 
Barbara’s tempest-tossed heart. 

In a few moments this maidenly heart was set to beating 
still faster by a knock at her door. 

“Lambkin !” said Jezebel’s kindly voice, outside. 

“ Yes, Aunt Bel,” replied Barbara, opening the door 
and admitting her life-long guardian and ever-welcome 
guest. 

“My dear lamb,” said Jezebel, “dat young man hab 
come back agin from de ship.” 

“Who? Philip ?” exclaimed Barbara, with a cry of 
delight. 

“ No, not Philip, but t’odder man — de man what dey 
call Camphire.” 

“ 0, you mean Lieut. Cammeyer,” said Barbara, with a 
sigh of disappointment. 

“ Yes, dat’s de man.. He has come yer. And he wants 
you for to come for to see him. Dat’s de way wid de men. 
Dey is always dancin’ about de women. But, lambkin, 
look sharp aginst all sich jumpin’-jacks. What’s de good 
book say ? ‘ De Lord taketh no delight in de legs ob a 


326 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


man.’ Why don’t he take no delight in deir legs ? ’Cause, 
I suppose, deir ways is bad.” 

Some wind and rain — but neither violent — had given 
Lieut. Cammeyer a pretext for calling at the house ; — 
ostensibly to consult Capt. Chantilly, hut really to see 
Barbara Vail. 

After her first flush of disappointment, Barbara was glad 
that he had come. If she could not have Philip’s own 
society, she could find a secondary pleasure in conversing 
with one of Philip’s companions. 

So, in meeting Cammeyer, Barbara clasped his hand 
warmly. She looked into his face winsomely. She 
answered his apologies for intrusion by assuring him, 
with music in her voice, that she was delighted to see 
him. 

“ No words,” said she, “ can express the joyful tribute 
of thanks which I owe to all the deliverers whom Provi- 
dence sent to find us in our lone island. ” 

Lieut. Cammeyer, who, on his way to the house, had 
studied how to address himself to Barbara, and who tried 
to recall from the limited range of his reading some choice 
quotation from Shakespeare or Byron, such as would fitly 
describe and flatter her, — could think of nothing suitable ; 
and, having nothing to say, he said nothing. 

“Mr. Cammeyer,” she remarked, as they sat on the 
stony door-step, “ my father will never get through talking 
with his old friend Capt. Chantilly ; and so you must talk 
to me. Tell me something about the world. 0 I am so 
eager to hear all about it ! You have visited many coun- 
tries. Tell me something about my own. Perhaps you 
smile at my country, and think it is the ocean. But 
America is my country — and yet I have never seen it. Pict- 
ure it to me. And then tell me about other countries too 
— and their great cities — London and Paris — and all their 
famous structures and monuments. And tell me of the 


IHTEKCHANGE. 


327 


music you have heard — the great operas and dramas. My 
mother says that Beethoven’s ninth symphony — when all 
the instruments combine in it — melts the listener’s soul. 
And tell me how the fairies are represented in the Mid- 
summer Night’s Dream. I once dressed Beaver as Puck, 
but he behaved badly in his part. And tell me of the 
great cathedrals that you have seen. And the Pyramids — 
did you ever climb them ? And please tell me also of the 
shops and bazaars where things are sold. How strange it 
must seem to go to a market-place, and get great stores of 
beautiful goods by paying out small coins. And tell me 
about the famous paintings and statues, which my father 
is always sighing to see. What a delight it must be to 
gaze at the Apollo Belvidere ? And what is the Greek- 
Psyche like ? 0 you will think me so ignorant ! But re- 
member how much I have missed by being kept away from 
life. So please, Mr. Cammeyer, tell me all about all these 
wonderful things.” 

Barbara poured out this speech with a swift vehemence 
of utterance, making the words sparkle as they fell. Her 
cool and calculating auditor was astonished at the brilliancy 
of her manner. This young woman’s enthusiasm, vivacity, 
and impetuosity were beyond his comprehension. She was 
electric and captivating. He said to himself, 

“ What an actress she would make !” 

Barbara’s questions (and she asked a hundred more) were 
for the most part beyond her listener’s ability to answer. 
The young lady seemed to be a sort of animated universal 
catechism. Professing to know nothing, she evidently 
knew something of everything. This caged bird had been 
fed for a lifetime on crumbs of learning. 

Nothing slaughters a man’s pride so mercilessly as to 
find that the woman who fascinates him is his intellectual 
superior. 

Cammeyer instantly suspected that Barbara saw through 


328 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


him, and therefore that she ranked him, unerringly, as a 
charlatan. 

If Barbara had questioned him concerning business and 
profits — rates of exchange — wages and cargoes — tariffs and 
harbors — ships and armaments ; — he could have given 
praiseworthy answers ; but she had unexpectedly swooped 
upon him as the eagle upon the tortoise, and lifted him to 
such a perilous height that he had nothing to do but to 
fall and be dashed to confusion. 

Nevertheless, in many respects Oammeyer was a strong 
man and he knew it ; and he knew also that if he could 
only get a chance to exhibit his strong qualities, he would 
retrieve himself and make a better appearance. 

He had a selfish reason why he wished to appear at his 
best. 

With his neat, trim, officer-like manner — with his cool, 
shrewd, and ambitious mind — with his long-practised 
and stringent economy, resulting in a bank account in 
New York — this gentleman — thus equipped for enjoy- 
ing life and making a career — had always meant to 
marry ; provided he could marry well ; that is, pro- 
vided he could marry for enough beside love to make life 
respectable. 

Barbara was an heiress, and Cammeyer knew it. 

He knew that Mary Pritchard (whose parents had died 
in her childhood) had been brought up by her grandfather, 
and had become his sole heir ; he knew that Dr. Vail, on 
his father’s death, had become his sole heir ; he knew that 
the two estates were now in the hands of safe trustees, 
awaiting reclamation by the lawful inheritors ; he knew 
that this joint property would one day be the sole posses- 
sion of Barbara Vail ; and, knowing all this, he conceived 
the brilliant idea that this fine fortune should become the 
prize of Anthony Cammeyer. 

Then, too, besides Barbara’s long-waiting wealth, the 


INTEKCHAKGE. 


329 


young lady (as Cammeyer’s eyes delightfully told him) had 
unparalleled personal beauty. 

“Yes,” said he, “she is a diamond of the first 
water.” 

Cammeyer, who had his way to make in the world, here 
discovered an unexpected chance to make it. 

Since the reign of Lucy Wilmerding, he had seen no 
such princess as Barbara Vail. He had thrown away one 
golden opportunity; he would seize and hold fast the 
other. Haying squandered Lucy, he would economize 
Barbara. 

Anthony Cammeyer reasoned the case deliberately, and 
resolved that Lucy’s loss should be Barbara’s gain. 

But how should he begin to conquer his conqueror ? It 
must be by some other mode than ignorantly answering 
her wise questions — for in this way he would certainly be 
conquered himself. He must change his tactics. 

But to what ? 

There are two qualifications for entering into paradise. 
One is, to be an archangel ; the other, to be a serpent. If 
Cammeyer lacked the graces of the one, he possessed the 
subtlety of the other. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


a sailor’s yarn. 

QJHALL we sit under these cocoa-trees ?” asked Rod- 
ney Yail of Oliver Chantilly. 

“No,” replied Capt. Chantilly, “let ns go on hoard the 
ship — I am impatient to peer into your dungeon.” 

“ Dungeon ! ” exclaimed Rodney, as they ferried them- 
selves on board, “no, I cannot call the Coromandel by 
that name. What though she be black as a collier ! — smutty 
as a chimney-sweep ! — nevertheless to me her rusty deck is 
holy ground. There is not one of these planks but has 
stood between me and death a hundred times. In every 
hour of our fear, the staunch ship, with her heart of oak, 
was braver than her inmates. My dear Oliver, for the 
protection that she gave us, for the home that she kept 
walled up around us, for the wise instinct that led her 
finally to the land ; — for all this, — and then, too, because 
the ship was Barbara’s birth-place — cradle — play-ground — 
school-house — home — country — everything ; — I love this 
old craft as if she were my own flesh and blood. So Ion, ; 
as she and I remain in the same world, I shall never think 
of her as an inanimate thing — but always as a living creat- 
ure — a member of the family that she saved.” 

In saying this, Rodney gently patted the deck with his 
foot as he would have patted his dog with his hand. 

Oliver Chantilly espied on deck near the foremast a corn- 

330 


A sailor’s yarn. 


331 


plex mechanical contrivance, with heavy timbers, and with 
long levers like capstan-bars. 

“ What is yonder strange machine ? ” 

“ That,” replied Eodney, “is the press with which I 
manufactured the ship’s fuel from sea-weed. I gathered 
the floating grass — dried it on the deck like hay — bound 
it into bales — and crushed each bale between the jaws of 
this press into a solid block of coke, shaped like a bar of 
pig-iron. Come down with me into the forecastle, and I 
will show you a dozen cords of this grass-wood, piled up 
as in a woodshed.” 

Lifting a hatch, they descended into the Plutonian region 
from which the ship’s fires were thus strangely fed out of 
the water. 

“Did this stuff burn well ? ” asked Oliver, examining it 
in the dim forecastle. 

“Yes, for I larded it with blubber, or sprinkled it with 
oil. Fortunately we needed fire, not to warm our cabin, 
but only to cook our meals. Even our provisions had 
mostly been cooked on being first put into the cans. A 
little fuel, therefore, would go a great way. I might have 
made fagots for a time of the ship’s interior woodwork — 
such as bulkheads, and the like — but as the old craft had 
been burned on the outside, I spared her within. 

“ I had a few casks of alcohol, and rigged a spirit-lamp ; 
but I knew that these casks, once empty, would need, like 
the widow’s cruise, Elijah’s magic to fill them again. Oil 
I had — of my own manufacture — from the fat of the por- 
poise. That’s a barrel of it on your left, yonder. And I 
have only to tap that bung, fill my lamp from it, and trim the 
flannel wick, to show you at night the smokiest lamp-light 
you ever saw. 

“ To collect the sea- weed, I constructed large rakes, 
which I kept constantly in tow, and reaped the ocean’s 
surface of its grass for thousands of square miles. I have 


332 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


harvested the largest meadows in the world. Possessing 
not an acre of land, I was probably the largest farmer 
among all mankind — and, like the austere man in the 
parable, I reaped where I had not soAvn, and gathered 
where I had not strown. On many a midsummer’s day, 
this deck has been knee-deep with sea-grass outspread to 
sun and wind. Barbara and Beaver would romp and 
frolic in it as in a hay-mow, and birds of passage would 
stop in their flight to perch upon it for a moment’s rest, 
mistaking it for an island.” 

“ Have you ever eaten this sea-grass ? ” asked Oliver. 
“ Our boys on the Tamaqua sometimes relish it as a nov- 
elty. It is not a bad spinach.” 

“Yes,” said Rodney, “we have not only put our sea- 
weeds under the pot, to make it boil, but into the pot, to be 
boiled. Take these weeds fresh from the water, dripping 
and un wilted, and they are then two-thirds sugar and starch ; 
they vie with oatmeal and Indian corn. The Hebrews had 
a manna of the desert ; the sea- weed is a manna of the 
sea. How often I have relished it with sweet oil, pepper, 
and vinegar ! It must have been Neptune’s salad.” 

“ Did the ship ever spring a leak ? ” 

“No, never ; her frame, you see, is bony as a giant’s — 
her shell strong as a helmet. You know she was planned 
for an Arctic voyage. But a smaller ship was wanted for 
that service. The Coromandel is over four hundred tons ; 
too large for ploughing the ice. Baffin’s flag-ship was 
only eighty tons — Frobisher’s three vessels were altogether 
only seventy-five. But the mistake in the Coromandel’s 
size was a happy mistake for me and mine. It kept us 
afloat in an ark of safety — in a tower of refuge. 

“Yes, the ship is staunchness itself. Over the whole 
framework there is a double planking, composing two 
complete sheathings — making a ship within a ship, like a 
shell within a shell. Each of these wooden walls is of 


A SAILOR’S YARN". 


333 


three-inch plank. Between the two walls is an interven- 
ing space of a hand’s-breadth, packed water-tight with 
tarred felt. You might pull oft* the outer ship like the 
rind of a nut, and the inner shell would still remain a per- 
fect hull — as stout as any East Indiaman that ever braved 
a storm. 

“Then, too, the whole interior is lined throughout with 
cork, as you see. This was put on because, in the Arctic 
climate, cork would have a low conducting power, and 
would prevent the condensation of moisture inside the 
ship. Knock your knuckles against the ceiling or sides 
anywhere — thus — there is no hollow sound. Take this 
handspike and strike as hard as you* can — you will get no 
reverberation. Would you expect such a vessel to spring 
a leak ? How many years could the Club of Hercules, if 
cast afloat on the high seas, drift about without going to 
pieces ? Remember, too, that though the Coromandel 
was built for the wintriest region of the globe, yet her lot 
has been cast in continuous summer and perpetual calm.” 

“ What a freak of fate,” exclaimed Oliver, “ that a ship, 
built to battle with Arctic icebergs, should have dozed 
away a lazy life on a midsummer sea ! ” 

“ You remember,” said Rodney, “that the Coromandel’s 
original name was the North Star. But the strange-fated 
ship has seen so little of the North that she has never yet 
found a field of ice, nor felt a flake of snow. I often 
sighed, yearned, longed for a whifl of winter. Sometimes 
when the thermometer was at 90° on deck, I used to come 
down into the cool cabin, stretch my weary limbs on our 
white wolf -skin, and imagine myself in a snow-drift. If 
Jack Frost had made an occasional visit to the Coroman- 
del, he would have been a welcome guest ; but he never 
blew his breath against our window-panes. Barbara, 
child of the summer, has a profound curiosity to see ice 
and snow.” 


334 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


The two comrades then passed from the forecastle 
through a bulkhead into the hold, where the cans were 
stored. 

“Did any of your provisions mildew and spoil ?” 

“Yes, a few did, years ago — particularly the cans of 
corn, tomatoes, and plums. This was during the pro- 
longed rainy weather, when the dampness struck the cans 
with rust, and the rust ate through the tin. But I then 
invited the porpoises to come on board and oil my cans ; 
after which the rust ceased altogether, and the mildew 
with it.” 

“ Rodney, if you had sailed five years before you did, 
you could not have carried with you such perfectly-cured 
provisions. This simple art — so full of mercy to the cast- 
away — is now carried to such perfection that there is no 
reason why a can of meat or a jar of plums should not 
last as long as the Pyramids. But did you not often suffer 
from thirst ? ” 

“No, we were spared that pang. Before the fire, the 
ship had five water-tanks. On that fearful night, one of 
these was broken to pieces by a falling spar. The other four 
were left unharmed. All these I kept open to catch every 
shower. In addition to these water-butts, I arranged the 
six hogsheads that you see in this row. I had thus ten 
water- vessels— containing in all, when full, thirteen hun- 
dred gallons ; which was about three and a half gallons a 
day for a year in advance. 

“ To catch the rain, I stretched out between four posts, 
amid-ships, a clean white bed-sheet like a flat roof, and, 
putting a small weight in the centre of the sheet, filtered 
the water through this strainer, and conducted it by 
troughs to the tanks. 

“In a shower we frequently hung out our clothes to be 
freshened. In the sultry season we washed them in salt 
water, and rinsed them in fresh. Our sheets, pillow- 


A sailor’s YARN-. 


335 


cases, pocket-handkerchiefs, were thus kept, all the year 
round, not exactly like layendered linen, yet sweet and 
pure.” 

“ Did you distil salt water ? ” 

“Yes, on Capt. Cazneau’s plan. He boiled sea-water 
in a tea-kettle, and passed the steam through a pistol- 
barrel, which he kept cold by wet cloths, so that it con- 
densed the steam into drinkable fresh water. My contri- 
vance was more extensive : instead of a tea-kettle, I used 
an iron pot, — and instead of a pistol, a double-barreled 
gun. We called the distillation from this warlike instru- 
ment our ‘gunpowder tea/ But we usually had rain- 
water enough to dispense with our Cazneau teapot.” 

“To grope under this deck,” said Oliver, “is like ex- 
ploring the Catacombs.” 

“Follow me !” said Rodney, who then led his friend 
through a dark passage suddenly into the cabin. 

A mild light was streaming through the plate glass in 
the ceiling, and through the two windows at the stern. 

“ By Jupiter ! ” exclaimed Oliver, — who was struck with 
the cheeriness of the interior, — “ this is not shipwreck ! 
— this is luxury ! Bless my soul ! — a piano — a writing- 
desk — a flower-pot — pictures in the panels — rugs on the 
floor — books in the library — lounges — easy chairs — frescoes 
over head — why, Rodney, your rusty old sea-shell has a 
pearl lining ! Let me tell you, sir, that the government 
does not provide me such quarters on the Tamaqua.” 

Dr. Yail proudly smiled at the pleasure which his friend 
took in the old ship. 

“ Room No. 13, yonder,” said Rodney, “ is Barbara’s. 
Come and see it. No, it is locked, and she has the key. 
No. 2, on the other side, is Mary’s. No. 4, Jezebel’s. 
No. 5, the school-room. Some of the rooms are filled with 
fruit-jars, but we have spare beds enough to accommodate 
our friends. Here is No. 10 — where Cammeyer slept last 


336 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


night. Eobson and Carter were next door in No. 8. Here 
is No. 15 — my junk-shop.” 

Dr. Vail opened the door and showed Oliver a museum 
of weapons, tools, instruments, and utensils of various 
sorts. There was a carpenter’s work-bench with planes, 
chisels, and augers. There were brackets and pegs on the 
wall, holding fish-lines, decoys, harpoons and barbs. 
There was a rack full of firearms. There was a chronom- 
eter in an ebony box, together with five or six watches 
hanging side by side, all ticking. 

“ These time pieces,” said Eodney, “ and the watch in 
my pocket, have never in seventeen years been allowed to 
run down.” 

After a prolonged look at this curiosity-shop, Oliver 
walked to the after end of the cabin and noticed the dead 
geranium, which struck him with a pathetic interest. 

“ Death,” sighed he, “ which has withered for you only 
a few green leaves, has in my house cut down my fair 
Kose. — What is this scroll ?” pointing to a piece of white 
paper pinned to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

“ That’s the ship’s bulletin,” replied Eodney, “ and 
gives the play-bill of our last dramatic performance at 
sea.” 

Oliver laid his hand on the shriveled paper, and, straight- 
ening out the wrinkles, read as follows : 

THE OCEANIC THEATRE, 

ON BOARD THE SHIP COROMANDEL. 

A Matinee Performance will be given on Saturday next, May 18th, 
1864, on which occasion will be presented 

THE UNSHAKESPEAREAN COMEDY 
OF 

JULIO AND ROMIET, 

with an entirely new cast of characters not included in the original 
play by the Great Bard, to wit 


A sailor’s yark. 


337 


Julio - Dr. R. Vail. 

Romiet Miss B. Vail. 

The Watery (instead of Fiery) Tybalt - Mr. Beaver. 

Nurse and Frier (a la gridiron) - - - - Mrs. Jezebel. 


P . S. — Boys not admitted unless accompanied by their parents or 
guardians. 

On pernsing tlie above, a smile passed oyer Oliver’s face, 
followed by a shade, and he exclaimed with a sigh, 

“ After all, Rodney, it is I who, in prosperity, have 
had life’s tragedy, — while you, in adversity, have had its 
comedy.” 

Dr. Yail opened his writing-desk and exhibited his log 
and journal. 

“ How did you take your latitude and longitude ?” 

“ In a fashion so rude,” replied the navigator, “that I 
never knew whether my figures were right or wrong. At 
first, I thought I was without a chronometer. But you 
have just seen the instrument in the ebony box. It is the 
Harrison pattern, and set to Greenwich time. On the day 
after the shipwreck, I found it in No. 11 (the Rev. Mr. 
Atwill’s room), ticking as it ticks now. I do not know 
how much it has since gained or lost. 

“ I would have given a little finger for Lane’s copy of 
Bowditch’s Navigator, which the fugitive carried off with 
him. All the tables I had were those in the Nautical 
Almanac of 1847. Here it is. It is very stale now. I 
corrected it year after year by guess. It served me better 
for the open sea than it would have done for a dangerous 
coast. 

“ I made a sun-dial. You will see it on the binnacle. 
In perfectly calm, bright weather, while the ship lay 
motionless, this dial assisted me by its shadows to deter- 
mine the noon. After long habit, 1 became able, without 
watch or dial, but by simply glancing at the sky, to deter- 
mine the sun’s meridian within a few minutes. Having 


338 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


my nooning, or my best approach to it, then by my Hadley’s 
quadrant — (this little one on the top of my desk) — I found 
the sun’s altitude, and thence deduced the ship’s latitude. 
Then relying on my chronometer to give me the Green- 
wich time — I compared the Greenwich time with my own 
time, and so got my longitude as near as I could. 

“ Whether my calculations ever came within a hundred 
miles of my true position, I could never tell. But even if 
I could have taken my bearings to an exact fraction, still 
as I had no map, nor Bowditch’s list of prominent points 
round the world with their latitudes and longitudes (from 
which I might have roughly constructed a map), I never 
knew my geographical location. Of course, as years ad- 
vanced, and as my chronometer and my watches fell away 
from rectitude, I had less and less confidence in my observa- 
tions. What they chiefly told me was, that I was in the 
midst of a wilderness of waters from which the land kept 
fleeing forever away. Here is a map of our voyage.” 

Dr. Yail opened a lower drawer in his desk, and took 
out a long roll of brown paper, which he unrolled and 
hung against the door of the book-case. 

It was a singular map. 

A line ran horizontally across the middle of the sheet to 
represent the equator. Another line, crossing this at right 
angles, and a little to the right of the centre, stood for 
the meridian of Greenwich. Once a week, on this scroll. 
Dr. Yail habitually marked a dot indicating his latitude 
and longitude at the time. Each week’s course he 
chronicled by a waved line between the latest two of these 
dots. These lines, as they lengthened and accumulated, 
looked at last like a snarl of black thread. 

“This map,” exclaimed Oliver, “is like the diagram of 
a drunken man’s staggerings to and fro.” 

“Yes,” said Rodney, “the ship and I were the blind 
leading the blind. Look ! These inky zigzags are like 


A sailor’s yarn - . 


339 


the wanderings of some restless ant, imprisoned for a 
whole summer on a single sheet of paper — running back- 
ward and forward, hither and yon. The ship crept first 
one way, then another ; boxing and unboxing the compass 
as often as the winds did ; first describing one eccentric 
figure, then another ; making progress one day and un- 
making it the next ; always beginning a new voyage, but 
never ending the old one. It was a circumnavigation of 
nothing. 

“ I kept marking my course on this map until the lines 
ran into each other so often that if I had continued this 
linear record during the whole time of our shifting lodge- 
ment in the mid- Atlantic, the sheet would have grown to 
be one black blot.” 

“Were you not always expecting some passing ship ?” 

“Yes, and when none appeared, I sometimes asked my- 
self, Had the commerce of the world been destroyed ? or 
was I sailing on some unrecorded sea ? I did indeed find 
some vessels ; for at twenty-one different times, noted in my 
journal, I detected the upper sails of some far-off voyager 
whose hull, to me, like mine to him, was below the horizon. 

“I had a flag of distress, reaching as high in the air as 
I could rig a rickety prop to carry it in calm weather ; but 
my flag must have appeared, at a few miles’ distance, a 
mere speck against the low sky, and my flag-staff a mere 
spider’s thread.” 

“ I knew,” said Oliver, with a sigh — thinking over his 
past searches for the Coromandel — “ I knew there were 
small hopes of your being discovered in that deserted sea 
except by some chance wanderer like yourself.” 

“ Small indeed ! ” replied Rodney. “ I was out of the 
way of the world’s commerce. Take, for instance, the 
ships bound from the United States to Great Britain ; I 
was far below their latitudes. Take the ships from Hew 
York or Liverpool to the Cape of Goo.d Hope ; I was to 


340 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


westward of their common course. Take the ships return- 
ing from China to Boston ; I missed all these in losing the 
trade-wind. Take the whalers ; I might have met with 
some of these, for they go everywhere ; but they are a 
small flock, scattered from pole to pole ; and they seldom 
meet even one another.” 

“ You had plenty of leisure for hunting and fishing,” 
observed Oliver. 

“Yes. All the fish in the sea and all the birds in the 
air were mine — if I could only catch them. I spent days 
in devising snares, baits, weapons, and stratagems. Neces- 
sity is the mother of invention, and I learned to put a filial 
trust in her mother- wit. 

“ Occasionally I saw a spermaceti whale, with a head 
full of sperm candles which I wanted for our evening 
parlor ; but this was always a vain wish, for I could never 
ofier battle to such a giant ; I was unwilling to risk my 
precious tackle on any game heavier than the dolphin or 
the porpoise. 

“ The sea, I think, must contain as many porpoises as 
the land counts cattle on a thousand hills ! While the 
Coromandel was on her outward voyage to Africa, these 
gymnasts would get under her bow and keep pace with her 
for hours together. After the old ship lost her masts 
and sails, she could not give them so merry a race. 
Nevertheless, as the tortoise wins against the hare, so I 
often won against these scampering hares of the waves ; 
for I picked many a young one out bf the water with my 
harpoon. 

“ At first I often missed my aim — miscalculating the re- 
fraction, and pricking my fish with one or two prongs in- 
stead of five. The barbs would then tear out from the fat 
flesh, leaving the mad creature to go free. But when my 
weapon sank deep, the victim would leap — plunge — shoot 
away with the speed of an arrow — roll and snort — unreel 


A sailor’s yark. 


341 


my slender rope from its wooden cylinder for three or four 
hundred fathoms — and fight bravely for his life, while all 
his companions would race after him to be in at the death. 
I have taken a porpoise five feet seven inches long.” 

“ Did you eat him ? ” 

“ Yes, we ate his choice morsels. He made good cut- 
lets. Once, in London, I attended the Lord Mayor’s din- 
ner, and among the dishes was the porpoise. Our English 
forefathers regarded this as a dish to set before the king. 
It was served up at state-dinners in the Elizabethan court. 
Quite likely Lord Bacon ate of it at the palace, and Shake- 
speare at the Mermaid Tavern. And as it was relished by 
Queen Bess in her banquet-hall, it was also relishable to 
Queen Mary in my cabin.” 

“ Did the sharks ever follow you ?” 

“Yes, sometimes. One huge man-eater — the white 
shark that the sailors hate — glided like a ghost round the 
ship, off and on, for twelve days, until at last the pallid 
spectre began to swim through my brain at night. There 
was something hideous in his close companionship. His 
small, merciless eyes would look at Barbara when she lean- 
ed over the rail as if he wanted to eat her at a mouthful. 
I threw him a water-pail. He turned over, belly upward, 
and took the floating pail at a snap. I then resolved to 
get my pail back. So I fixed an iron hook at the end of a 
spare halyard— made a bait of blubber— nipped the sinner 
in the lower jaw — and after allowing him ample leisure to 
shrive himself for death, I inflicted the penalty. I then cut 
him open, and took out my pail. ” 

“Did you ever catch a manatee ? — what our boys nick- 
name the sea-cow ? ” 

“Yes, twice, but not until I was in West Indian 
waters.” 

“ Did you ever snap up a sea-turtle ?” 

“ Yes/’ replied Rodney, “but the turtles were hard to 


342 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


catch. One would come to the smooth surface — bask in 
the sun asleep— give the whale-birds a chance to rest on 
his shelly back — and then, at the slightest noise, would 
go down like a stone. Occasionally one would bite a bait, 
but the hook would necessarily be small, the tackle light, 
and the creature so powerful that he would go gadding off 
and by main force break away. 

“ At last I took an empty firkin — corked it tight to serve 
as a float — hung the bait from the handle — and attached a 
long rope to an iron ring in the bottom ; — the bottom float- 
ing upward, and the bait downward. This stratagem work- 
ed to a charm. The turtle, on nabbing the hook and 
feeling its pricks in his beak, would instantly sink, carrying 
the buoy with him ; but the buoy perpetually draggedhim 
up again, so that the further he went down, the further he 
had to come back. Such a strain, after an hour or two, 
would exhaust him. I could then easily haul him to the 
ship’s side, gaff him under a flipper with a boat-hook, and 
hoist him home. 

“Here is a sea-turtle’s shell. I fixed strings to it, to 
make a harp for Barbara ; but I could never get the notes 
to chord ; and though I was more anxious to draw the trees 
and rocks toward me than ever Orpheus was, yet at the 
sound of my poor shell, they never came any nearer.” 

“ I have often thought it strange,” remarked Oliver, 
“ that birds should fly so far out to sea, and be found so 
many miles from their nests.” 

“ But,” said Rodney, “ they carry their nests with them ; 
they sleep in their own feathers, as the bear does in his own 
fur, when he hibernates. A marine bird is sovereign over 
land, sea, and sky ; he lords it over all three of the 
world’s - great trinity of realms. What a superiority to 
man’s limitations ? 

“ My weapons for capturing birds, you saw in the rack ; 
first of all, I had Captain Lane’s fowling-piece with cart- 


A sailor’s YARN-. 


343 


ridges to match ; and then two revolvers left by Mr. Good- 
rich in No. 8, each of which had its own limited 
supply of catridges. There was no loose powder or shot 
about the ship, either in flask or horn ; nothing hut these 
cartridges. This little stock of ammunition I guarded 
with jealous care, and used only on rare occasions. 

“As a substitute for fire-arms, I made an archer’s bow 
— see ! try and bend it against your knee ; it is made of 
successive layers of barrel-hoops, wrapped round and 
bound fast with wire ; it looks like a wagon-spring. 

“For arrows, look at these — made from the gilt mould- 
ings of the cabin doors These steel points were knife- 
blades. Each arrow is a lance, not a barb ; for these 
weapons were too precious to be lost ; so, before shooting 
one of them, I attached to it a fish-line by which to pull it 
back. In calm weather I frequently shot a lance into 
some bird that perched on the ship’s rail, or rested on the 
waves. Sometimes I killed him on the wing. Beaver 
had no happier moments than when he plunged into the 
water to seize and bring home my game. 

“ But I had other resources more crafty than this arch- 
ery. I used to set snares on the deck to trip the birds by 
the legs. Then, too, when a flock of water-fowl lighted on 
the ship, I struck them with a staff. Sometimes the credu- 
lous creatures, particularly when the deck was covered 
with sea-weed, would mistake the ship for an island, and 
would settle down upon it in great numbers. Then being 
unsuspicious of danger, they were easily approached, and 
gave up their lives at a stroke.” 

“ Did you ever eat the ship’s barnacles ? ” 

“Yes, often. I divided each side of the ship into bar- 
nacle-beds, and with a long-handled scraper raked the 
beds in succession. While we were eating the crop from 
one patch, we gave the rest of our plantation time to 
grow. In forty days a barnacle would grow half an inch 


344 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


long ; in three months it would reach its full size, nearly 
an inch — almost as big as the miniature oyster of the 
epicure. But I found the barnacle to be unwholesome 
food, and gave up the cultivation. ” 

“ How did you manufacture your salt ? ” 

“My method was to dip bed-sheets overboard, then 
hang them in the sun to dry, and after the water had 
evaporated, collect the salt that adhered — shaking it off 
like sand. Boiling the water would have been easier, 
but I could not afford the fire. In the climate of Capri- 
corn, from a thousand parts of sea-water I obtained thirty- 
four parts of salt ; under the Equator, sometimes thirty-five 
or six. At one period I had twenty-six hundred pounds 
of packed and salted fish and fowl, which I had caught 
and cured.” 

“Were you never without relishable food ? ” 

“Yes, always, for I was like all other human malcon- 
tents, and longed for what I had not ; for instance, for a 
cow and her milk — for a shoulder of mutton — for a saddle 
of venison ; but whenever I confessed to such cravings, 
my wife rebuked me and called it impious to repine. As 
for Barbara, who had never nibbled a mutton-chop in her 
life, nor seen a slice of fresh meat, nor tasted a boiled egg 
— except now and then a bird’s egg, laid in a stolen nest 
among our sea- weed on deck — she was content to be with- 
out the luxuries which she did not know how to crave.” 

“ How did you preserve your health ? ” 

“ It was by keeping this little box locked,” said Dr. 
Yail, smiling and pointing to his medicine-chest. “ I 
opened it oftener for Beaver than for any other member of 
the family. I threw more physic to my dog than I took 
myself. Beaver would watch all night in the rain, and 
have a regular influenza in the morning. Then, in the 
clear weather, he would get half blinded by the sunlight, 
and would come to me to bathe his eyes with digitalis and 


A sailor’s yarn. 


345 


water. I could cure him of everything but old age ; he 
was the first of our company to become a patriarch — ante- 
dating Jezebel herself. At ten years Beaver began to show 
gray hairs in his brown coat. Occasionally one of his teeth 
would loosen ; and, as it never grew firm again, would soon 
fall out. Whenever Beaver lost a tooth we had a season 
of mourning, as if at a funeral ; for we relied on him for 
our marketing, particularly in fresh fish and poultry, 
and considered every one of his teeth a valuable family 
servant. 

“ Jezebel, who came of a race native to the climate in 
which we resided, rarely had a sick day, but slowly waxed 
fat, and fed her lamp of life with her unfailing natural 
oils. 

“Barbara had her teething and her croups, but has 
never yet had her measles. For, as Jezebel says, ‘Dar 
bein’ nobody to cotch de measles from, dar aint no measles 
to cotch.’ Barbara, I am sorry to say, has thus far escaped 
also whooping-cough and mumps. All these enemies will 
be lying in wait for her on her entrance into the world. 

“ Her mother, who used to be an occasional martyr to 
the sick-headache — (by the way, Oliver, do all the women 
in the civilized world still have headaches as they did in 
my time ? ) — overcame this tendency at sea. Of course 
she never grew robust, for a morning-glory cannot change 
into an oak. 

“ My own ailments were principally fevers, caught from 
my over-anxieties, prolonged watchings, and harassed 
mind. 

“But what family, in any climate, amid all comforts, 
could reasonably expect to remain more exempt than mine 
did from the natural ills that flesh is heir to ? Indeed, we 
had more than the common share, not of disease, but of 
exemptions. 

“ The will,’ says the philosopher, ‘that is the man.’ 


346 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


I found that a strong will — a desperate determination not 
to be sick — was the best way to keep well. The mind is a 
magical protector of the body. * A cheerful heart doeth 
good like a medicine.’ 

“ The ship’s sanitary regulations I rigidly enforced, and 
chiefly against myself. I maintained a military order and 
precision in working the pumps — washing the clothes — 
airing the cabins — timing the meals to have them regular — 
changing the diet to keep it wholesome — sleeping unex- 
posed to the night-damps— and, above all, providing con- 
stant occupation of mind, not omitting cheerful music, 
merry laughter, and diverting talk. 

“ One infirmity we all outgrew — sea-sickness. There is 
a sure cure for sea-sickness ; — and that is, to live altogether 
at sea, or altogether on land. 

“ Then, too, I escaped one of the chief troubles of life 
— want of money. 1 always kept a little gold and silver 
in my pocket — see, these coins have worn each other’s faces 
off and grown smooth. My cash balance on hand was 
always sufficient to keep me free from all pecuniary frets 
and cares. If I was not a millionaire, still I always had 
more money than I could possibly spend. But like many 
a richer man, I derived little comfort from my wealth.” 

“ How often,” asked Oliver, “ did you throw overboard 
a message ? ” 

“Too many times,” replied Bodney, “to count the 
number ; for whenever we emptied a glass-jar that was 
stout enough to be a message-bearer (generally an olive- 
jar), I put into it a record of our misfortunes, sealed it 
tight, and cast it overboard. Sometimes, as if loth to part 
with us, our little messenger would keep within our sight 
for a day or two. I suspect that fully one-half of these, 
and of all similar waifs thrown from ships at sea, are swal- 
lowed by sharks — just as happened to my water-pail. 
Nevertheless, as I used to hear stories of such missives 


A SAILOR'S YARN. 


347 


reaching the shore, or getting picked np at sea, — I hoped 
that some of mine would reach the eyes of men. At least, 
I always had the satisfaction of feeling, whenever I cast 
one of these bottles overboard, that I was dropping a 
letter into the post-office. If it never reached its destina- 
tion, the fatality was no greater than frequently used to 
happen to a letter posted from Salem to Boston.” 

“You were saved from one peril,” said Oliver, “you 
had no mutinous crew.” 

“Yes, I had, for I was a mutineer myself. Some- 
times my mind, notwithstanding my best efforts to set a 
watch at the gate of my rebellious thoughts, would admit 
into the citadel a banditti of cunning assassins in the shape 
of insane apprehensions and unconscionable hallucina- 
tions ! 

“I feared, for instance, that a sword-fish would scuttle 
the ship — that the copper sheathing would peel off and 
admit the ship-worm to honeycomb his way inside — that 
the coral insects would deposit their rock against our keel 
and gradually draw us down — that a water-spout would 
overwhelm us — that lightning would revenge its first fail- 
ure and strike us again — that an upset lamp would set the 
ship on fire — that dry-rot would eat the timbers to punk 
and powder — that a sudden leak would pour the ocean into 
us — that the cargo would turn topsy-turvy and capsize the 
ship — that on some moonlight night we would be lured 
to walk on the sea’s silver bridge to our destruction — that 
we would lose our reason and the Coromandel become a 
’ mad -house — that Beaver would turn hydrophobic and bite 
us with frothy mouth — that death would smite some of us, 
leaving the survivors worse than dead : — all these and a 
thousand other grim and dismal fancies haunted my 
gloomy mind — playing with windy breath on its iEolian 
chords of fear and dread. 

“ On the other hand, quickly reacting from despond- 


348 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


ency to hope — I was cheated by the mirage. Sometimes 
green islands would appear lying just before us — in plain 
sight — within easy reach ; or a ship under full sail would 
be palpably bearing down to rescue us. Sometimes I fan- 
cied a procession of our friends approaching from a distance. 
Sometimes I could see the streets of Salem thronged with a 
public reception on our arrival. Sometimes I was out of 
the body, standing off at a safe and happy distance from 
present perils, and looking at myself as if I were another 
man. 

“ Long ago I ceased to wonder that sailors have sworn to 
seeing the Fata Morgana ; or that the Canary Islanders 
have descried off their coast the visionary Isle of St. Bran- 
don ; or that the boatmen in the Straits of Messina have 
beheld the city of Reggio thrown up into the sky.” 

“I imagine,” said Oliver, “that as each day ended, you 
must have rejoiced at the flight of time.” 

“Ah ! ” exclaimed the wanderer, heaving a sigh at the 
recollection, “ time — with us — seemed never to he in flight, 
hut always to he sitting with folded wing, perched like a 
bird of ill-omen on our doomed craft. The exact period 
from our shipwreck to our landing was from October 1st, 
1847, to May 16th, 1864. Sixteen years, seven months, 
and fifteen days.” 

“As / look back,” said Oliver, “to the shipwreck, the 
time — long as it is — seems hardly long enough to have per- 
mitted Barbara to grow from a child to a woman. ” 

“Our daughter,” said Rodney, “was our almanac. 
Whenever Mary and I tried to recall the date of some par- 
ticular storm, or any half -forgotten event, we seldom turned 
to our diaries, but said, ‘ It was when Barbara was a baby 
— or before Barbara was seven years old — or after Barbara’s 
eleventh birthday.’ So as one cuts names into the bark of 
a tree, we notched our years into the fair rind of Barbara’s 
growth.” 


A sailor’s YARN-. 


349 


“ Rodney, when yon first found yourself a castaway, were 
you terror-stricken at the situation ? ” 

“ If,” said Dr. Yail, “ some good or evil spirit had then 
announced to me that, within this dismantled wreck, we 
were to dwell for nearly seventeen years, forbidden during 
all that time to touch or see the shore, — and yet, that in 
spite of these perils, we were to live and prosper, instead 
of miserably perishing, leaving none to tell the tale ; — I 
would not have believed it — no — not though one had risen 
from the dead.” 

While Dr. Yail and his friend sat on the deck, in a 
couple of old willow-chairs, talking of the ship and her 
company, — going over the multitudinous particulars of 
their voyage, their provisions, their privations, their make- 
shifts, their hopes and fears, their daily life and longings, 
their health and sickness, and their final escape from the 
lonely sea to the lonely isle, — the sinking sun had almost 
set. 

“ It is past the time,” said Rodney, “ at which we prom- 
ised Mary to return to the house.” 

Just then, emerging from the cocoa-nut trees, Barbara, 
who had been sent by her mother to call her father, ran 
down to the water’s-edge, followed at a few paces by 
Anthony Cammeyer. 

The merry maid took off her straw-bonnet and waved it 
to the loiterers on the ship, calling them with a ringing 
voice to supper, at which they must not dare to be late, she 
said, for fear of Jezebel’s frown. 

The two friends on the ship immediately stepped into 
the ferry-basket, and the two on shore (not waiting, and 
perhaps not wishing, to be joined by their elders) tripped 
side by side briskly out of sight among the cocoa-palms. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


AN OUTSTRETCHED HAND. 


S a rich soil, hitherto unplanted, takes eagerly the seed 



-AX of the first sower, so Barbara’s heart, into which 
never before had any lover dropped a word of love, at last 
received the magical germ ; and this germ, under the 
bedewing of the maiden’s joyful tears, blossomed by instant 
miracle into perfect bloom ; — for the swift soul, unlike the 
slow soil, needs not to tarry for the tedious progress of the 
seasons, but may ordain the seed and its harvest so near 
together that it can plant the one and reap the other at 
the same moment. 

To Barbara the miracle was, not that she was in love 
with Philip, but that Philip was in love with her. 

Barbara’s love — now of so long a date in her constant 
heart — had originally overtaken her on the drifting ship 
just as it would have done in a crowded city ; — for it is 
woman’s nature to love, even before it is her fortune to 
have a lover. It has already been sufficently explained 
how Barbara never once imagined that, during all her 
years of love and longing for Philip, there had been a paral- 
lel experience in the breast of her unseen lover ; — an un- 
known reciprocity of attachment between them ; — an un- 
suspected knitting together of their two lives into one as 
by a prearranged destiny. 

It is hardly necessary, therefore, to say that neither 
Anthony Cammeyer nor any other person could come 


350 


AN OUTSTRETCHED HAND. 


351 


between Barbara and the one beloved object of her heart’s 
fealty. 

But in Philip’s absence, his ambitious rival, having the 
common self-complacency which marks all such charac- 
ters, quickly forgot the first abashed confusion which 
he had felt in Barbara’s presence, and saw no reason 
why his superior officer should possess any greater in- 
fluence than his own with an unworldly woman’s virgin 
heart. 

This natural vanity in Cammeyer was now inadvertently 
fostered in him, first by Mrs. Vail and then by Barbara ; 
for Mrs. Vail exhibited toward him a marked politeness 
which her daughter was quick to perceive, and which, per- 
ceiving, she closely imitated in her own deportment as the 
proper polite model for her to copy. 

Accordingly Barbara was full of extraordinary attentions 
to Anthony Cammeyer in Philip Chantilly’s absence. 

Probably, had this ambitious man known the real state 
of Barbara’s heart ; had he dreamed that for Philip Chan- 
tilly — her first, her chief, her only accepted lover — she 
had already filled the wine-cup of her oblation to overflow- 
ing, and that what she was giving to the second comer was 
only the good-will which she had for this friend as she had 
the same feeling for every officer and sailor on Philip’s 
ship ; — it is quite possible that Anthony Cammeyer would 
have quenched the promptings of his ambition, and left 
the great prize in the peaceful possession of its first captor. 

But Lieut. Cammeyer knew nothing of this. He mis- 
interpreted Mrs. Vail ; he misinterpreted Barbara ; he 
misinterpreted the situation. And accordingly he was 
unconsciously engendering misery for all. 

During Philip’s absence — which had now prolonged 
itself beyond the rough weather of the second day into the 
sunshine of the third — Capt. Chantilly and Dr. Vail talked 
incessantly together ; opening the volumes of two whole 


352 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


lives to each other, and discussing the history of the world 
during seventeen of its most eventful years. 

This left Barbara frequently in the company of Cam- 
meyer. 

That shrewd officer fancied that his fortune now hung 
before him like a golden apple, waiting to be plucked. 

Anthony and Barbara took walks together, scouring the 
island in every nook and cranny : visiting the coral rocks 
and inlets ; rambling among the pineapples and plantains ; 
plucking the red roses and the redder cardinal flowers ; 
singling out the Berenice butterflies ; listening to the 
screaming macaws; beckoning to the dwarf goats ; and 
climbing the hillocks for outlooks to the sea. 

“ Are you interested in geology, Mr. Cammeyer ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Ye-es, a little,” he replied, meaning a very little. 

“By standing here on this rock,” said she, “you can 
see the whole coast of the island. Notice yonder how the 
ground rises in terraces toward a central ridge of conical 
hills — though my father smiles at me for calling them 
hills, and says they have not risen high enough in the 
world to he entitled to such honors. On the northwest, 
as you may observe, the rocks are of coralline limestone. 
Here on this eastern side, you will recognize under us 
strata of silicious sandstone, intermixed with ferruginous 
matter — the calcareous sandstone passing into silicious 
limestone.” 

“How did you learn all this ?” asked Cammeyer, sur- 
prised at her profundity. 

She replied laughingly, “I have yet learned so little of 
the wonders of Nature during our few months’ residence 
here, that I have often wished myself Cambuscan’s 
daughter.” 

“ Cambuscan ?” inquired Cammeyer, “ who was Tie ? ” 

“ /” exclaimed Barbara, surprised that any inhahi- 


AH OUTSTRETCHED HAHD. 


353 


tant of the outer world should he ignorant of so pal- 
pable a fact in human history. “ He was the King of 
Tartary. ” 

“Bless me !” cried Cammeyer, with an effort at a jest, 
“why do you wish to be a Tartar ?” 

“ Because,” replied Barbara, — who was as ignorant of 
Cammeyer’s slang joke as Cammeyer was of Barbara’s his- 
torical allusion — “because, good sir, the King of Tartary’s 
daughter had a ring which, whenever she put it on her 
finger, enabled her to understand the language of all birds 
and the virtues of all plants. I have often wished to wear 
that ring.” 

Mr. Cammeyer now lighted a cigar. This was a great 
curiosity to Barbara. She had never seen such a thing 
before, nor had she ever happened to hear her father men- 
tion this adjunct of civilization. Had Barbara been a 
young man, she might have taken to this fascinating vice 
with graceful promptitude, and accepted the lieutenant’s 
jocose offer of one of the perfumed tempters ; but as he 
accompanied this sham proposition with a statement that 
such indulgences were not for the fair sex, she gazed with 
bewilderment while he poured forth the curling smoke 
from his Roman and double-chimneyed nose. 

“Kow,” said she, “ since you have lighted a torch, I will 
show you something to set fire to. Come this way.” 

She led him to a little boiling spring ; in other words, 
to a spot where carburetted hydrogen escaped from the 
earth ; and whenever the rain left the shallow excavation 
full of water, the escaping gas, bubbling up through the 
water, gave it the appearance of boiling. 

“ Put your hand into it,” said she, with a merry twinkle 
in her eyes. 

“ I do not wish to be scalded,” he responded, cautiously. 

“ Then I shall put in mine” 

Saying which, she rolled up the sleeve from her beautiful 


354 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


white arm, and thrust that whole faultless piece of alabas- 
ter into the bubbling flood. 

“How can you bear so much heat ?” asked Cammeyer, 
thinking her a witch. 

“ 0, it is not hot. It only appears to be so. If I had 
my father’s thermometer here, I would show you that the 
temperature is just the same as of any other pool of rain- 
water. But I will set the water on fire. Please lend me 
your torch.” 

Barbara took Cammeyer’s cigar, and, applying the lighted 
end to the boiling flood, set the volatile gas in a blaze, 
which made the disturbed water appear to be burning with 
a white, flickering, ghostly light. 

The glowing face of the woman who wrought this 
witchery smote Anthony Cammeyer with a spell of sorcery. 

Soon a puff of the sea-breeze blew out the fire, and 
Barbara was about to lead her companion back to their 
rocky seat, overlooking the Atlantic — when Cammeyer, 
who had trodden on something that seized his foot, gave a 
start and cry. 

“ That is a scorpion,” said Barbara, and she curiously 
watched the vicious little thing in the grass. 

“ Am I bitten by a scorpion ? ” cried Cammeyer. 
“ Then it is a mortal wound. I am a dead man ! ” 

He turned to a cowardly paleness, and a cold sweat 
broke out on his brow. 

“No,” replied Barbara, quickly, “the little creature 
has very ill manners, but he can do you no harm. My 
fingers have been bitten a dozen times by just such a 
snipper-snapper as that.” 

Cammeyer’s scare was for nothing, and he felt a little 
ashamed of his exhibition of cowardice in the presence of 
his braver companion. 

“You seem,” he said to Barbara, “to be afraid of 
nothing.” 


AIT OUTSTRETCHED HAHD. 


355 


“ 0 yes, I hate vampires. They come upon one una- 
wares and suck one’s blood. I have wakened in the morn- 
ing and found that a vampire had left a blood-spot on my 
ear — sometimes on my arm.” 

How startling ! ” exclaimed Cammeyer. “ Did the 
creature not terrify you in the night ? ” 

“ Ho, the vampire comes upon you gently while you are 
fast asleep, and pricks you with a line sharp point. My 
mother, several years ago, had some cambric needles on 
the ship. I remember that their points were very fine. 
But the vampire’s tooth pricks a smaller hole than a cam- 
bric needle could do. 0 I hate these midnight assassins ! ” 

Cammeyer expressed his cordial assent to Barbara’s 
view of vampires ; which showed no small disinterested- 
ness on his part, since he was something of a vampire 
himself. 

A light green snake, graceful and timid, now glided 
past them, escaping out of their way. 

Cammeyer again started. 

“ That,” said Barbara, “ is one of our pussy-cats. Have 
you a cat on your ship ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ 0, I wish you had brought it ashore with you. I am 
so anxious to see a real cat. We found mice in the house, 
and my father said that having no cat — for cats kill mice, 
do they not ? — we must have a mouser ; and so we took a 
harmless green snake — like the one that just passed. We 
call our snakes our pussy-cats.” 

Barbara grew more and more fascinating to Cammeyer, 
hour by hour ; and as he walked at her side, he hardly 
noticed the parrots, the humming-birds, the ants, and the 
centipedes ; which latter, had he condescended to scruti- 
nize them, would have given him even more loathsome 
occasion to shudder than he found in the snakes and scor- 
pions. He was intent only on gazing at Barbara, who 


356 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


sometimes seemed to him to be a beautiful wild siren 
superior to humanity. 

Comely to his eyes from the first, she swiftly grew be- 
fore him into a piece of perfect splendor. 

“ 0, my dear friend ! ” exclaimed Barbara, “ I have for- 
gotten to show you one thing. Look yonder — it is a little 
broken boat that came ashore during the earthquake. I 
planted it round about with flowers. Stand here — see — 
they have almost hidden it out of sight. But I will push 
aside the vines and show you the boat’s name.” 

Barbara then uncovered the gilt letters of the name. 
Good Hope. 

“It is a man-of-war’s boat,” said Cammeyer after some 
examination ; “ but I know of no vessel in the American 
navy with such a name. As these are English islands, 
some English cruiser was probably in this neighborhood 
during the earthquake. The boat may have been washed 
from the ship’s deck and cast ashore.” 

Barbara, leaving the flowery boat and resuming her seat 
among the rocks, looked into her companion’s pleased eyes 
and said, 

“Mr. Cammeyer, I have neither sister nor brother. 
Yes, I have a distant sister, whom I have never seen. 
Lucy Wilmerding has always been to me like a sister. 
You heard my father speaking of her yesterday— did you 
not ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Cammeyer, with an air of ignorance and 
indifference. 

“0,” exclaimed Barbara, “ I wish that you , Mr. Cam- 
meyer, could have known Lucy Wilmerding — I am sure 
you would have loved her. What an unhappy fate is hers 
— to break her heart over a false lover ! Can men be so 
despicable ? What a pity that my dear Lucy could not 
have been the wife of a brave and noble man — like your- 
self 1” 


AH OUTSTRETCHED HAHD. 


357 


Cammeyer felt javelins piercing him in these words. 
He quivered under them, but resolved to hide his wounds, 
which he did with a self-mastery so complete that no trace 
of his emotion appeared on his face, save a little pallor. 

“Lucy shall be my sister,” continued Barbara, “and 
you shall be my brother — will you not ? Then I shall 
have both brother and sister. Why do you frown ? ” 

“I cannot be your brother,” said Cammeyer, trying to 
smile, “but I can be something more. Will you permit 
me to say what ? ” 

“ I do not understand you,” she replied. 

“ There is a good reason why I cannot be your brother.” 

“ What is it ? ” she asked. 

“ It is because,” said he, “I wish to be your — husband.” 

Barbara’s heart heaved with sudden tumult. Her face 
reddened to a flame. Her eyes glittered like stars. 

“ Husband ? ” she exclaimed, as if asking herself whether 
she had heard the strange word correctly. 

The astonished maiden was in a novel situation. She 
had received for the first time an offer of marriage. No 
wonder she was bewildered. But her mingled surprise 
and alarm were not due to her kindly interest in the young 
man she stood before — an interest merely friendly, and 
nothing more. Her agitation was all centered in one par- 
ticular word which had fallen from his lips. 

This was the word, “husband.” 

It was the word itself, and not the man who uttered it, 
that so strongly shook Barbara’s mind. 

The cool-headed Cammeyer, who felt flattered by the 
obvious emotion which his proposition had occasioned in 
Barbara’s breast, little suspected that this sudden pricking 
of her heart was due, not to the archer, but to the arrow. 

The heart uses a more swift and fiery logic than the 
head. Barbara, having made the discovery through 
Anthony Cammeyer that a man who admires a woman may 


358 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


want to be her husband, immediately leaped to the con- 
clusion that Philip Chantilly might also be actuated by 
the same desire. But she was puzzled to understand 
why Philip, who had passionately declared to her his love, 
had not asked her to be his wife ; while, on the other 
hand, Cammeyer, who had not spoken to her a word of 
loye, had proposed to be her husband. 

Barbara’s native instinct was that love should be only 
for marriage, and marriage only for love. 

One golden thought, however, had now been struck in 
the mint of Barbara’s mind — a thought which, like a 
guinea, was stamped on two different sides ; each impres- 
sion being counterpart to the other, and both necessary to 
the perfect coin : one was, that possibly Philip would de- 
sire to be her husband ; and the other — its golden oppo- 
site — that haply she was destined to become Philip’s wife. 

Under the present and blissful burden of this fancied 
future, Barbara, hiding her holy secret within her happy 
heart, and shrinking from a rude exposure of it to a 
stranger’s eye, hastily rose and said, 

“Good sir, I must now go.” 

Saying which she sped away with stately haste from her 
bewildered companion ; who, as he watched her retreating 
form as she disappeared among the trees, little dreamed 
that on reaching the house she stole straightway to her 
chamber, and sinking on her knees before the ancient 
crucifix on the wall, invoked the grace of Heaven on the 
head of Philip Chantilly. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


REVOLT. 


A FTER Barbara ended her passionate prayer for Philip 
-AA. (i n -which her devotions were probably not according 
to any known rubric or ritual) she rose from her knees, 
turned away from the prie-Dieu, and stepped in front of 
a looking-glass. 

Barbara’s glance at the mirror on this occasion was not 
to see Narcissa, but herself. Her desire to appear well in 
Philip’s eyes was the same emotion that has blushingly 
enkindled many a pure woman’s cheeks, and modestly 
prompted her to array herself with chaste beauty to meet the 
lord of her heart and fate. One swift glance by Barbara, 
first at her face and then at her dress, reminded her that 
though she could not heighten the comeliness of the one, 
she knew where to borrow a queenly richness for the other. 

This supplement to Nature’s loveliness lay packed in 
lavender in a chest, and had once been a bride’s wedding- 
gown — part of the wardrobe left on board the Coromandel 
by Mrs. At will. 

Barbara, who on the ship had kept this chest in her 
state-room, and who in the Hermitage kept it in her cham- 
ber, now lifted the lid — took out the white silk robe — 
shook out its folds — swept her hand over the lustrous 
fabric to make it rustle — held it up, first on one arm, then 
on the other — unclad herself of the gown she was wearing 
— put on this cream-white array — be jeweled herself with a 

859 


360 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


necklace of pearls — unbound her hair till it fell about her 
shoulders — shod her feet in white silk slippers — clasped 
her bracelets on her naked arms — and, haying thus arrayed 
herself, went to submit her loveliness to the approving glass. 

“I wonder,” thought she, “whether Philip admires 
white silk.” 

Going to her jewel-box, she took out Philip’s letter — 
which she kept therein as her chief jewel — kissed the en- 
velope — kissed the seal — kissed the paper — and then read 
the contents from beginning to end, in a low, soft voice, 
as if murmuring some immortal music to her mortal ears. 

“ Oh what a letter ! ” she whispered. “What wonderful 
words it contains ! ‘Your true lover, Philip Chantilly ! ’ ” 
And she kept repeating the closing phrase. “ Philip calls 
himself my true lover. What can I give my true lover in 
return ? True lovers should have true love. 0 Philip, I 
give you my true love.” 

Barbara then forgot her glowing image in the glass, and 
became absorbed in the contemplation of another image 
more pleasing to her mind — the figure of the young sailor 
of the Tamaqua — the hero of her true love, of her pure 
heart, of her whole soul. 

Her thoughts rose to such a rapture that she paced up 
and down her little apartment, like an untamed leopard in 
a cage ; she shivered and burned ; she wept and laughed ; 
she caught up her one and only love-letter, and pressed it 
to her lips — which was an act of grace such as she had 
not yet bestowed on her one and only lover ; she sighed — 
yet not with gr^ef ; she put her hand against her breast as 
if trying to steady her beating heart ; and she exclaimed, 

“ How often have I put on this dress to please my father 
in our solitude ! How often have I danced in these slip- 
pers on the floor of the Coromandel’s cabin at my mock- 
wedding ! How often have I worn this necklace as if it 
were a bridal ornament ! ” 


REVOLT. 


361 


No sooner had these whispered words escaped her lips 
than she once more pressed her hand against her bosom, 
and said in a low moan, 

“ 0 hush, foolish heart of mine — giddy with vain hope ! 
It cannot he. Do you not know that Philip may choose 
among a thousand — yes, among ten thousand — of the chief 
ladies of all the world ? Will he then come hack again into 
the wilderness to choose you ? ” 

Barbara answered her question doubtfully, 

“ Yes — no — no — yes.” 

But her doubts were only of a moment’s space, for 
“ perfect love casteth out fear.” 

Barbara rallied her shaken heart, and exclaimed, 

“ Did he not write it with his own hand ? — ‘ Your true 
lover, Philip Chantilly ? ’ 0 Philip, Philip ! ” 

The excited girl turned again to the glass, and catching 
sight of her white hand, which Philip had kissed, she 
kissed it on the same spot— as if some touch of Philip’s 
lips still remained there. 

The real woman who gave this kiss, seeing her image 
doing the same thing in the glass, addressed her twin self, 
and said, 

“ 0, Narcissa, look at me now ! Speak to me, darling, 
as of old. Speak to me of Philip ! Speak to me and say, 

‘ 0 thou blessed among women ! ’ Speak to me and tell 
me, ‘My beloved is mine, and I am his !’ — 0 Philip ! — 0 
God!” 

The tumult in her breast overcame her ; she felt a sud- 
den dizziness ; and she sat down between the guardian 
griffins of her antique chair. 

Mr. Cammeyer, meanwhile, had slowly followed the 
swift-flying Barbara to the house ; and as he already had 
noticed Mrs. Vail’s marked courtesy towards him ; and as 
a young man who courts a daughter finds it worth while 


362 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


to be reinforced by ber mother, — he made a prompt and 
bold statement to Mrs. Vail of his proposition to Barbara. 

In doing this, he distorted the case, and left a false im- 
pression on Mrs. Vail. 

“ In short,” said he, in concluding his adroit remarks, 
“I asked for your daughter in marriage, and though she 
received my offer in a somewhat unconventional way, I 
have reason to suppose that she accepted it, and I have 
done myself the honor to be the first to inform you of it.” 

On hearing this intelligence, Mrs. Vail was filled with 
consternation and grief. 

Anthony Cammeyer was no favorite with Barbara’s 
mother. How then, she wondered, could he have become 
in so short a time a favorite with Barbara herself ? Above 
all, how could the darling child have so swiftly given her 
heart to a total stranger — a man, too, not to be compared 
with Philip Chantilly ? 

With motherly aggressiveness, Mrs. Vail instantly re- 
solved to interfere between her daughter and this new- 
comer. 

Rousing her invalid strength to make an appropriate 
reply to Lieut. Cammeyer, she addressed him thus : 

<f Iam so surprised — so bewildered — and (I cannot help 
confessing) so grieved at what you have told me from Bar- 
bara — who ought herself to have been the first to announce 
it — that my heart almost refuses to speak. That girl — 
from her babyhood down to these last few days — has seen 
no other man than her father. The sudden arrival of 
strangers among us has been exciting and bewildering even 
to her father and me — how much more so to Tier ! She is 
an impulsive creature — rushing hither and thither like the 
wind. If she has suddenly poured out upon you her sym- 
pathy and love, she may follow it with her disappointment, 
her vexation, yes even her scorn and hate. She is a law unto 
herself, and will be loth to receive her law from another. 


REVOLT. 


363 


Of the submissions which women are supposed to make in 
wedlock — of the subordinate rank which they are expected 
to hold — of all this, Barbara as yet knows nothing. Con- 
sider how liable such a girl’s feelings are to be mistaken — 
to be misdirected. You take an undue advantage of her 
isolation and ignorance. I would rather that our old ship 
had never brought us to the shore than that Barbara, in 
her first misstepping on the land, should stumble into 
a false marriage. If she loves you truly, nothing will 
sever her from you ; and her love will not grow less, but 
more, by waiting and feeding itself on hope and trust. 
On the other hand, if she does not yet know her heart, you 
will harm both yourself and her by pressing this suit any 
further, just now. Mr. Cammeyer, I beg you not to say 
another word to my daughter on this subject until I can 
confer with her father and herself — not a word until I give 
you my consent to speak — not even if you have to wait sev- 
eral days, or even longer. Will you promise me this ? ” 

Mr. Cammeyer, not dissatisfied with Mrs. Vail’s argu- 
ment — which, to him, seemed on the whole to tell in his 
favor — gave his promise on the spot ; and, noticing her 
excitement and weariness, withdrew from her presence. 

Barbara, in the next room, had overheard the rumbling 
voices of the two talkers, but did not catch the drift of 
their conversation. 

Lieut. Cammeyer, on leaving the house, walked with 
elastic and conquering step toward the Coromandel — hailed 
Robson and Carter— stepped into the ferry-basket— was 
drawn by them to the ship — sat in a willow-chair on deck — 
lighted a fresh cigar — and plunged into a profound medi- 
tation. 

Among the mystic laws of human nature, which follow 
like Nemesis in the track of human conduct, is one which 
ordains that no man’s mind, however excited with present 
interest or engrossed with prospective ambition, can at any 


364 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


moment be safe against the inopportune and awful intru- 
sion of the dead, of the absent, or of the wronged. 

Lucy Wilmerding, like a phantom, now confronted An- 
thony Cammeyer, and accompanied him in all his thoughts 
of Barbara Yail. 

It is not to be supposed that Anthony Cammeyer still 
loved Lucy Wilmerding ; for, properly speaking, he had 
not loyed her at first, and he loved her now less than ever. 
Whatever pleased interest he may have had in her during 
the early days when he inwreathed her name into his vis- 
ions of future advancement in the world, his feeling was 
not true love. Its shallow depth had no right to that deep 
name. Little love is none at all. Koman loves a woman 
truly if he loves her less than he loves himself, or less than 
he loves any other person or thing in the world. 

But Lieut. Cammeyer— though he had never truly loved 
Lucy Wilmerding — had not become so wholly callous to 
the reproaches of his conscience, as not to have groaned 
in spirit many times at the injury which he had inflicted 
on this noble woman. He knew well enough that the blow 
which he gave her had broken her heart — that it was a mur- 
der which he had committed upon her, most murderous in 
that its victim, though slain, could not die, but must 
endure a living death. 

Cammeyer knew also that for this dastardliness on his 
part he had suffered a long, slow punishment, which Nature 
had wrought out within him in her subtlest way ; a punish- 
ment now made awfully complete ; for he was distinctly 
conscious that, in spite of all his admiration for Barbara, 
and of the fascinating spell which she had wrought upon 
him, and of the offer of marriage which he had made to 
her — he was, nevertheless, not in love with her ; and this 
fact showed him that one of the elemental functions of 
a human being, the power to love, if he had ever possessed 
it, had been at last obliterated from his composition. 


KEYOLT. 


365 


“ If I cannot love such a woman as Barbara Vail,” said 
he, “ then I can never love any one.” 

He was right : the fire was extinct within him — the gift 
was withdrawn — the fountain of this most human and 
most divine of all feelings was dried in his breast forever. 

If, in the rude clash of carnal powers, it is a truth of 
history that they that take the sword shall perish by 
the sword, it is still more awfully true that, in the jarring 
collision of human souls, whoso destroys another’s love 
and heart and life shall suffer the destruction of his own. 

This is an awful retribution, but Cammeyer knew, not 
only that it had been inflicted upon him, but that he 
merited the penalty. 

A cold anger, like the chill of rain, passed through his 
blood against Barbara for her unconscious agency in reveal- 
ing to him the searing and blasting of his nature — the 
final sentence of his fate. 

But his prolonged meditations did not lead him to 
change, but only to intensify, his determination to woo and 
win Barbara ; for he thought that in so doing he might 
possibly, after all, find his way back toward his former 
and lost self. If not too late, he hoped yet to renew the 
freshness of his youth — to be once again at peace with his 
tempest-tossed breast. Otherwise he knew himself a lost 
soul, — condemned to “ the blackness of darkness forever.” 

Meanwhile, Dr. Vail, who had left the Coromandel 
shortly before Cammeyer came on board, returned to the 
house. 

“0 Rodney, Rodney,” exclaimed his wife to him, “ I 
am sick at heart. Mr. Cammeyer has made to Barbara a 
proposition of marriage, and she has rashly accepted it.” 

Dr. Vail stood transfixed. 

A tempest gathered on his brow. The lion which 
sleeps in every strong nature (like Thorwaldsen’s statue cut 
in the rock) was roused within him. No eagle, glaring at 


366 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


the fiery sun, ever showed more piercing eyes than Bod- 
ney’s at that moment. 

“Impossible!” he exclaimed, in a white heat. “By 
lieayen, no ! I forbid it. Never, never, never shall Bar- 
bara marry that man ! ” 

He clenched his hands ; he walked up and down the 
small room in great agitation ; the floor shook under his 
feet ; his wife turned pale at the sight of his rage ; and in 
the midst of this exciting scene, which wrought the father 
to frenzy and the mother to prostration, Barbara herself 
suddenly opened her door and stepped forth in her bridal 
dress ! 

She stood before her father like an apparition. 

They met, face to face, mute as statues, — and looked at 
each other, eye to eye. 

Every word of Dr. Vail’s loud and violent speech had 
been overheard by Barbara, yet she had not heard any 
mention of Cammeyer’s name. What she heard, instead 
of a name, was her father’s invective against an absent 
person, contemptuously described as “that man.” With 
Dr. Vail and Mary, “that man” was Anthony Cammeyer. 
With Barbara, it was Philip. 

Such and so great are the misunderstandings that arise 
between those who are nearest to each other, and who 
ought never to misunderstand each other at all ! 

There was something awful in Barbara’s agony at this 
moment. She was white and ghostly, as if her cheeks 
had caught their color from her veil. Her lips were blood- 
less. She looked like one against whom all the world had 
turned, and who in despair suddenly resolved to fight — 
perhaps to die. 

The case was a simple one, as it appeared to Barbara’s 
pure and innocent mind. She loved Philip. She loved 
him truly, wholly, absolutely. She loved him without 
reserve, without fear. She had not intended that this 


REVOLT. 


367 


love — now that ifc was requited — should be kept secret 
from her parents ; but thus far there had been no conven- 
ient opportunity for her to make to them a disclosure. 

Moreover, Philip was absent, nor had he yet asked of 
her the same question which another had put ; and cer- 
tainly it was hardly time for her to speak until he had 
spoken. 

Dr. Vail, standing before his daughter, gazed at her 
half in love, half in anger, and wholly in grief. 

Barbara felt that Philip had been unjustly and ignomin- 
iously treated by her father ; that Philip, the son of her 
father’s best friend — Philip, their long seeker and final 
discoverer — Philip, the noble prince and hero — Philip, the 
master of her heart ; — Barbara felt that this paragon of men 
had been scornfully denounced by her father as “that 
man.” Her father had called heaven to witness that she 
should never marry “that man.” The loving maiden, 

“ Vested all in white, pure as her mind,” 

bled under her veil from the wound so suddenly struck at 
“that man.” So Barbara, with love’s loyalty, resolved to 
take the fate, whatever it might be, which was now in 
store for “that man.” 

It is idle to argue about filial duty. This is a beautiful 
gauze which fond parents weave about their children, 
thinking it to be some charmed armor of protection, like 
Great-heart’s shield in the allegory; but it is neither a 
shield nor a coat of mail ; it is not a defence at all ; it is a 
mere filmy veil — a vapor — an exhalation ; it is consumed, 
blown away at the breath of one sweet and glowing word 
spoken by the stranger of yesterday who becomes the lover 
of to-day. Vain is it for the mother to bind her daughter 
to imprisonment at home in chambers 


Silken, chill, and chaste. 


368 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Vain is it for the father to spend his toil, his thought, 
his life, for the sake of one fair girl, who, like a bird, 
hearing a cooing-call afar off — a singer in another sky — 
flies away at the summons, and forever abandons the 
parental nest. 

This is Nature’s absolute fiat — which fathers and moth- 
ers may tremble at, but which they cannot resist. 

“I have heard all you said,” remarked Barbara, sadly ; 
“I was not eaves-dropping, but when it thunders, one 
cannot help having ears.” 

“Barbara,” said her father, “have you come in this 
attire to invite me to a wedding ? ” 

“No,” she replied, “I am not going to a wedding.” 

“ Why, then,” asked he, with a frown, “why are you in 
such haste to put on a semblance of marriage ? ” 

“ It was you,” she replied, “ who taught me to wear this 
dress. For your pleasure, many times I have pufc it on. 
At your command, I can take it off. Shall I do so ? ” 

Barbara’s voice grew tender, for she saw that her father 
was now in tears. 

“ 0 Barbara, my daughter,” he exclaimed, melted still 
further at the sound of her voice, “you have never 
given me a pang till to-day ! But your willingness to 
desert your mother and me, and to unite yourself in 
such haste to a stranger of whom you know nothing — 
0 my daughter ! my daughter ! this is so rash, so unwise, 
so unaccountable, so dreadful, that it pierces me to the 
heart.” 

He then caught up her hand in his, as he was wont to 
do— held it — patted it — and at last kissed it. 

In doing this, he espied on her finger, for the first time, 
an unfamiliar ring. 

He flung down her hand violently, and exclaimed, 

“What is this ? ” 

“ It is a wedding ring,” she replied meekly. 


REVOLT. 


369 


Dr. Yail instantly conjectured that it was a hasty and 
crafty gift from Cammeyer. 

“Barbara !” he exclaimed, with rekindled indignation, 
“ this is blasphemy ! Take that ring off ! Obey me ! 
This is mad haste — this is nnmaidenly behavior. The 
sight of this ring will be a shock to Capt. Chantilly ; I 
will spare him an unnecessary pang.” 

“0,” replied Barbara, appealing to her mother, and 
showing a new phase in her agitation. “ What have I 
done ? This innocent ring — why should it offend ? Let 
me think ! Yes, it was Capt. Chantilly’s gift to Philip’s 
mother. She is dead. Her bereaved husband, seeing me 
wear it, might he reminded of her death. I never thought 
of that. I will take it off at once.” 

She took off the ring. 

“Rosa’s wedding-ring ?” inquired Mary, with profound 
curiosity. 

“Yes,” said Barbara, “look at the inscription;” and 
she handed the ring to her mother, who, on holding it up, 
saw on the inner golden circle these engraved letters : 

0. C. and R. C., Jan. 12, 1840. 

“ How came this ring on your finger ? ” asked Dr. Yail, 
— whose anger was all gone. 

“I put it there myself,” replied Barbara, calmly. 

“ How came it in your possession ? ” 

Barbara knew not how to account for the sudden change 
in. her father’s manner. 

“ It was a gift to me,” she replied, and tears welled into 
her eyes at the confession. 

“ From whom ?” 

Then a proud heat, not unaccompanied with anger, 
shot its fire through Barbara’s blood ; and, remembering 
her father’s unjust and unaccountable assault on Philip, 
she answered, with a flash of resentment, 


370 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ It was given to me by that man .” 

“Who ? — Lieut. Cammeyer ?” 

“No, — Philip Chantilly.” 

All the remaining clouds broke away in a moment, and 
sunshine gilded each wintry face into a midsummer glow. 

“ Barbara,” said her father, “I was present at that wed- 
ding. So was your mother — long before she became my 
wife. We saw the bridegroom put this ring on the bride’s 
finger. I)o you say that Rosa’s son made a gift of it to 
you ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“When and how ? ” 

“He sent it to me from the Tamaqua, accompanied 
with a letter.” 

“ May I see the letter ? ” 

Barbara gave her father a proud and penetrating look, 
and stood before him with a dignity beyond her years, — 
as if some strange tincture had been incorporated into her 
blood, conveying with it the courage and wisdom of ma- 
turer life. 

“ I will show you the letter on condition,” said she, 
“that you will promise to love and honor the writer.” 

“ Barbara,” responded Dr. Vail, catching her in his 
arms, “ I accept the terms ; ” and her father was more 
glad at that moment to surrender to his daughter than 
to have conquered a king. 

Barbara then, with joy unutterable, and in the midst of 
blushes that suffused her cheeks like the rosy streaks of 
morning across a clear sky, — went to her chamber, and 
returned to her parents with her letter from Philip. 

“Barbara,” inquired her father, after he and Mary had 
perused it together, while tears were in Mary’s eyes — 
which her daughter was quick to see and to bless as a good 
omen — “Barbara, what did you say to Lieut. Cammeyer 
about marriage ? ” 


REVOLT. 


371 


“ Nothing. ” 

“ What do you mean to say to him about it ? ” 

“Nothing.” 

“ What does he expect you to say to him about it ? ” 

“Nothing” 

“ But your mother informed me that Cammeyer had 
asked you in marriage, and that you had accepted his 
proposal.” 

The maiden stood in mute bewilderment. Lieut. Cam- 
meyer was now revealed to her as having borne false wit- 
ness against her to her mother. Barbara, who seldom 
resisted any impulse of her heart, already fulfilled the 
prophecy which her mother made to Cammeyer, and was 
entertaining for that gentleman, not love for love, but 
scorn for hypocrisy. 

It is not a little singular, and yet perhaps will be ex- 
plained by some future canon of that perfected mental 
philosophy for which the world waits, how the souls both 
of friends and foes seem to take cognizance of each other 
at a distance and to engender mutual likes and dislikes at 
the same moment. 

“ My dear father,” said Barbara, who was determined, 
both for Philip’s sake and her own, to make her position 
still more clear, “ I was talking with Lieut. Cammeyer. 
He described his travels — the war — the great ships. I 
was a hungry listener, having starved so long. I felt 
grateful for such a companion — especially in Philip’s ab- 
sence. I thought of Viola in the Twelfth Night, and 
how she said, 

“ * I am all the daughters of my father’s house. 

And all the brothers too.’ 

So I told Mr. Cammeyer that, having no sisters or broth- 
ers, I had made Lucy Wilmerding my sister, and I asked 
would he be my brother ? lie then, to my astonishment. 


372 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


offered to be my husband. I made him no answer, but 
left his presence. Mr. Cammeyer has done me a wrong — 

you a wrong — and ” She was about to add “ Philip 

a wrong ; ” but her blushing face spoke her meaning better 
than her lips could have done. 

“Barbara,” said her father, who was now the most 
pleased of men, so that he heaved a mock sigh of pre- 
tended misery, “ I have just discovered the fearful sacri- 
fice which I must make in order to regain the lost world : 
— I must pay Jephtha’s price for it.” 


CHAPTER XXY. 


EMBARKATION. 

E ARLY the next morning, at Oapt. Chantilly’s sug- 
gestion, preparations were made for removing the 
household articles from the Hermitage to the Coromandel, 
so that the ship might he ready, on Philip’s arrival, to he 
towed to Barbados. 

“We shall he in Barbados to-night,” remarked Capt. 
Chantilly. 

“ 0 joy ! ” exclaimed Barbara. “ That will be, to me, 
my first entrance into the civilized world.” 

Her eyes sparkled with delight ; her cheeks grew flushed ; 
her form seemed as full of life as if she were about to run 
a race. There was such a fresh, original, unconventional 
air about her, that the captain — perhaps with a thought 
for Philip — said to himself, 

“ She is the most magnificent creature I ever saw.” 

“ Why did not Philip,” she asked, “come yesterday? 
The wind abated. Indeed there was no tempest at all.” 

“I don’t know why he did not come,” replied his 
father, “but Philip always acts with judgment ; and he 
must have had some good reason, which we shall know in 
due time. One thing I know already — he did not stay 
away through any loathing to return.” 

Much as Barbara wanted to see the world, she did not 
want to see it half so much as to see Philip. Indeed, if 
she could have chosen between going back again for years 

373 


374 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


on the ocean with Philip for her companion, and going 
into the crowded world without his companionship, she 
would have chosen Philip and given up the world. 

Barbara had already found that, judged by the final 
test, the chief thing in life is love. 

The transfer of the few household gods and goods to the 
ship was quickly made, for Capt. Chantilly ordered Lieut. 
Cammeyer to bring Robson and Carter to the scene, who, 
with brawny arms and Atlantean shoulders, carried the 
chests, boxes, beds, books and everything else so swiftly 
down, that in three hours, or long before noon, the re- 
moval was successfully accomplished. 

“Mother,” said Barbara, looking at the stained-glass 
windows, “ I am thinking of what Eve said, 

“ * And must I leave thee, Paradise ?’ 

0, how much more highly favored are we, who, instead of 
leaving Paradise, are about to enter it ! And yet,” she 
added, ‘ when we came to this place I thought it a Para- 
dise. Since that time, it has brought us the greatest hap- 
piness of our lives. So why should we not think our little 
island now more a Paradise than ever ? 0, I wonder if 

the whole world will thus go on from glory to glory ! ” 

Lieut. Cammeyer passed an uncomfortable morning. 
Very little was said to him by anybody. He noticed the 
general reticence. 

“ Something is wrong,” thought he. “ The bird almost 
hopped into my net yesterday. What baleful influence 
has interfered between her and me since then ? It is not 
Philip Chantilly, for he has not arrived. What, then, 
can it be ? ” 

At that moment Dr. Vail and Oliver went by him — 
talking earnestly, unaware of his presence. He could not 
catch the theme of their discourse. All he heard was a 


EMBARKATION. 


375 


few detached words, together with a single complete 
phrase, spoken with declamatory loudness, — 

“ What a scoundrel ! ” 

These words were uttered by Capt. Chantilly. The talk 
had been concerning Lucy Wilmerding — particularly con- 
cerning the baseness of the man who sought to marry her 
for her father’s wealth, yet who, when she seemed no 
longer likely to inherit it, deserted her and broke her 
heart. But neither Capt. Chantilly nor Dr. Vail knew or 
imagined that Lieut. Cammeyer was this destroyer of a 
woman’s peace. Little did they dream that they were 
discussing the conduct of a man who, at that moment, 
stood behind a cocoa-tree, within three paces of them. 

“ I heard the name of Lawrence Wilmerding,” said 
Cammeyer to himself. “ Then they must know about 
my affair with Lucy. How the devil could they have 
heard ? But do they dare berate me as a scoundrel within 
hearing of my own ears ? I will pay them for this 
audacity.” 

Lieut. Cammeyer began from that moment to play a 
cunning part : — the part of a devoted and obliging friend 
to all the family, particularly to Barbara. He was omni- 
present as an assistant — here with a rope, there with a 
strap — here with a hammer and nails, there with a hoop 
or band. 

But the more officious he grew, the more unresponsive 
they. At least so it seemed to him. But with all his 
acuteness, he misinterpreted their mood. 

They never suspected that they were offering him a 
slight. The islanders, grateful for their rescue, would 
not for a bag of gold have shown any unkindness even, 
toward the meanest of their rescuers. Mrs. Vail and 
Barbara were so absorbed in the great change going on 
around them, and at the greater change going on within 
them, — a change of residence and of destiny, — that they 


376 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


were lost in this inward activity of mind. “ The greatest 
joys” said Talleyrand “ are silent.” 

Barbara was of too generous a nature to harbor in her 
white bosom any dark malice toward a human creature ; 
and though Cammeyer’s misrepresentation of her to her 
father and mother had given her an hour of agony, yet on 
reflection she could not so greatly blame Cammeyer for 
misunderstanding her as she blamed herself for being mis- 
understood. Moreover it is not in the heart of any woman 
to bear unkind ness toward a man whose chief offence 
against her consists in his offering to marry her. 

Barbara was waiting for a good opportunity to say 
something very decisive to Cammeyer, but she meant to 
say it with dignity and kindliness. 

This opportunity soon came, for Cammeyer himself was 
quick to invoke it. 

“I am not pressing you for an answer, Miss Barbara,” 
said he. 

“ Mr. Cammeyer, an answer to what ? ” 

“I refer. Miss Barbara, to the question which I ad- 
dressed to you yesterday under the cocoa-nut trees.” 

“Mr. Cammeyer, you asked me if the boiling-spring 
burned me, and I answered no. You asked me if I was 
afraid of serpents, and I answered no. You asked me 
several other questions, to all which I answered yes or no. 
You then asked me a grave question which I did not answer 
at all. I think you know what it is — I will not mention it 
But I have a request to make concerning it ; I request 
that you will never again speak to me on that subject.” 

“My dear Miss Barbara, have you heard anything 
about me that has displeased you ? ” 

“Yes, good sir,” said Barbara, with charming frank- 
ness ; for she thought his misrepresentation a sufficient 
cause for her displeasure; “but I should not have told 
you so, had you not asked me.” 


EMBARKATION. 


Oammeyer pondered. 

“ They must have told her,” thought he, “that I de- 
serted Lucy Wilmerding ; — yes, they have told her that I 
am a scoundrel.” 

With that quick logic by which guilty minds persuade 
themselves that all the world perceives their perfidy and 
stands ready to punish it, Cammeyer felt that he was a 
disgraced man in the eyes not only of Barbara but of Mrs. 
Vail, Rodney, the captain, the ship’s crew, and all man- 
kind. Proud and arrogant by nature, he was stung to the 
quick — roused not to shame and repentance, but to resent- 
ment and revenge. 

“ I will deal blow for blow,” he muttered, grinding his 
teeth ; “yes, I will have both my vengeance and my prize 
— I will punish the men and capture the maid ; I will 
possess the estate besides. Scoundrel ! — that’s a hard 
word. So much the better — it will have the more mo- 
mentum for flinging it back. I will swing it over them 
like a bludgeon ! ” 

Oammeyer was one of those cool and gentlemanly vil- 
lains who hide their inward passion by outward calm, 
and who, when occasion requires, are competent to be 
the most consummate of knaves. But although he was 
too intelligent not to know that he was a man with a 
convenient absence of a moral sense, and was thereby 
fitted to execute a high order of treachery, he would 
nevertheless have been shocked at the contemplation 
of himself as other than a man who refused to be 
wicked except in an extreme case, for which a general 
tenor of good behavior, before and after, would amply 
atone. 

A thick, cool sea-fog had hung over the island all the 
morning, and Capt. Chantilly had several times attempted 
to look through it with his glass in hope of seeing Philip 


378 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


anchored somewhere off the coast, waiting to find his way 
to the cove. 

At length the wind freshened a little, partially thinning 
away the mists and vapors, so that the dim form of a vessel 
was discovered in the distance. 

“ Philip has chosen a wrong anchorage,” said his father, 
“ but when the fog lifts, his anchor will lift with it, and 
he will hasten hither.” 

Lieut. Cammeyer volunteered to go in the boat with 
Robson and Carter, and to pilot the ship. 

“ Yes, go and laugh at Philip for losing his reckoning,” 
said the captain. “My dear Miss Barbara,” he added, 
whispering in her ear, “there is something that makes 
young men blind ; do you know what it is ? It is sung of 
in ditties^and it rhymes with dove.” 

“Then it must be a sweet song,” said she. 

Cammeyer, in proposing to go in the boat, was not dis- 
interested, for though not desirous to assist Philip in find- 
ing his way back to the island and to Barbara, yet he sought 
a good excuse to get away from the company awhile, in or- 
der to plot his revenge. 

“ Boys, pull me out to that ship,” said Cammeyer, light- 
ing a cigar. 

It was a longer pull than they expected. Fogs magnify 
and delude. The rowers pulled and strained on the rolling 
sea for two hours, and still the dim ship appeared as far off 
as ever. They then found themselves plunging into a still 
denser mist. The situation was risky. Cammeyer felt per- 
plexed. To go back was dangerous, for the fog had shut 
out the island behind him, just as it had shut out the ship 
before him. 

It was now easy for Cammeyer to understand why Philip 
had mistaken the island. 

Shortly afterward, a sound of merriment from a chorus 
of voices came through the mist. 


EMBARKATION. 


379 


“ That’s one o’ Tom Jackson’s yarns,” said Robson, “ and 
the men are laughing at it.” 

The ship loomed up ahead of them, and they were just 
under her stern — so near that they could hear the flapping 
of her flag. 

“ Ship ahoy ! ” cried Cammeyer. 

“Boat ahoy !” was the response. 

Cammeyer ascended to the deck, while the two men re- 
mained in the boat. He was met at the gangway by a 
stranger whose uniform bespoke him an officer in the Con- 
federate service. A second glance showed him that the 
ship’s flag was not the stars and stripes but the stars and 
bars. He had boarded an enemy’s man-of-war. 

This was a capital blunder ; and he bit his lip with vex- 
ation. 

“ What ship is this ? ” he asked, with diplomatic gravity. 

“ The Good Hope, sir.” 

“ What commander ? ” 

“ Captain Lane.” 

Cammeyer was caught in a trap. 

His uniform had already betrayed him, and it was too 
late for his ingenious mind to devise a stratagem for es- 
cape. 

“ You are my prisoner, sir,” said the courteous midship- 
man who had greeted him, “ we take blue cloth wherever 
we find it ; we shall be happy to take all you can bring us 
of the same pattern.” 

Robson and Carter were then ordered up on deck, and, 
greatly to their astonishment, were immediately put in 
irons. 

“ I would like to see the captain,” demanded Cammeyer. 

“You shall have that pleasure,” responded his captor — 
“ which I am sure will be mutual. Do me the honor to 
follow me into the captain’s cabin.” 

The commander who greeted Cammeyer was Capt. Lane, 


380 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


formerly of the Coromandel and now of the Confederate 
Navy ; hut although Cammeyer once knew that the former 
captain of the Coromandel was a man named Lane, yet he 
had so long dropped this fact from his current thoughts, 
that it had faded from his memory. 

The greeting between the two strangers was not cordial 
but polite. 

After some mutual and commonplace inquiries, Cam- 
meyer touched the pith of the matter, and with dignified 
emphasis remarked, 

“I respectfully protest, sir, against this capture. These 
are British islands. You are trespassing on the neutrality 
of the British flag/*’ 

This was a valid argument, and Capt. Lane knew it. 

“I shall do myself the honor,” said he, “to hold you 
and your men, not as prisoners of war, but as police arrests. 
You have come as spies— that gives me a right to treat you 
as thieves. Besides, this island is uninhabited. I know 
these Grenadines well ; I came near running ashore on one 
of them three months ago during an earthquake. As it 
was, I lost the ship’s pinnace. I have stopped here many 
a time to fill my water-casks. And I know, sir, that for 
me no law prevails here except such as I choose to make 
for myself. You are a sailor — what is your ship ? ” 

“The Union gunboat Tamaqua.” 

“ Who commands her ? ” 

“ Captain Chantilly.” 

“ Chantilly ! I once knew a man of that name. He 
was a Yankee in South Africa. Damn him, I owe him a 
grudge. His very name makes me angry.” 

“ It is the same man,” responded Cammeyer, who in- 
stantly felt disposed to make friends with an enemy of 
Capt. Chantilly. 

“ What ! Oliver Chantilly, of Cape Town ? ” 

“ Yes, the very same.” 


EMBAKKATIOJT. 


381 


Capt. Lane was seized with a double passion of anger and 
fear. 

“ Where is the Tamaqua now ? ” he demanded. 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Don’t trifle with me, sir, or I may loosen your tongue 
with a hot iron.” 

Capt. Lane, who, years before, had been something of a 
coward, was now something of a bully ; — two characters 
that frequently exist in the same person. 

“ I mistook your ship, sir, for the Tamaqua.” 

“ Explain yourself,” demanded Lane. 

“ On Tuesday last,” replied Cammeyer, “ I was one of a 
party who left the Tamaqua to make a boat reconnoissance 
of the next island yonder. (I say yonder, for it is there, 
though you cannot see it through the fog.) The vessel 
proved to be an old wreck — a ship that was struck by 
lightning at sea, seventeen years ago — and that drifted 
about, disabled and helpless, with a handful of people on 
board, till at last they went ashore about four months since 
on one of the Grenadines. We found the old hulk still 
afloat, and — what is more — the company still alive. The 
Tamaqua is hourly expected to touch at the island in 
order to carry them away to Barbados. So I very naturally 
mistook your ship, sir, for the Tamaqua.” 

“ What was the name of the wreck ? ” 

“ The Coromandel.” 

Lane started to his feet. 

“ That’s not possible ! ” he exclaimed. 

“Yes, sir, as I said before, a strange story, but true.” 

Lane’s agitation was peculiar. It was made up of glad- 
ness, regret, chagrin and wrath. He exhibited a behavior 
that was unaccountable to Cammeyer. 

“ The Coromandel, did you say ? ” asked Lane, who tore 
off a sliver of white margin from a newspaper, and with a 
swift ferocity kept re-tearing it into infinitesimal bits. 


382 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“Yes, sir, the Coromandel. She is a strange-looking 
old hulk — green-whiskered with long sea-grass. She was 
built originally for the Arctic Sea — and made stronger than 
the Tower of Babel. ” 

“ The Coromandel ! ” ejaculated Lane, repeating the 
word oyer and oyer again ; alternately looking down at the 
bits of paper that he was littering the floor with, and up 
at Cammeyer’s face to detect some evidence of a falsehood. 
“ 0 no,” he continued, suddenly bursting into a loud laugh, 
like the enforced merriment of one who hears a ghost story, 
which he partly believes and wholly fears. “No, sir, not 
the Coromandel ! Nonsense, no ! ” 

Cammeyer, who was still puzzled by Lane’s agitation, 
again assured him that he had made a true report of the 
old ship. 

“ Give me,” cried Lane, “ the name of one of the pas- 
sengers.” 

“ Dr. Bodney Vail,” responded Cammeyer. 

“ Another.” 

“ Mary Vail — his wife.” 

“Another.” * 

“ Barbara Vail — a daughter, born on board.” 

“ Any more ? ” 

“ A negress — Mrs. Vail’s nurse, named Jezebel.” 

“ Is that all ? ” 

“ All but one, a dog called Beaver.” 

“ Great God ! ” exclaimed Lane, throwing down a mimic 
snow-storm of bits of paper out of his hand. “ I was cap- 
tain of the Coromandel on the very voyage when she was 
wrecked. That was my dog. All true — all true ! ” And 
he flung himself in his chair in profound astonishment and 
apparent dejection. 

“ Facts are stranger than fiction ! ” thought Cammeyer, 
marveling that he should have encountered the former cap- 
tain of the Coromandel. 


EMBARKATION. 


383 


“ But, sir,” cried Lane, leaping again to his feet, “ be- 
fore I believe this miracle, I must see it with my own eyes.” 

“ You will find it exactly as I have stated,” retorted 
Cammeyer. 

These disclosures put Lane into an entirely altered mood * 
toward Cammeyer. It made him look upon his prisoner 
as a man whom he would like to turn from an enemy into 
a friend. Lane felt that his reputation would be ruined 
forever by the reappearance of the Coromandel, to whose 
sinking he had sworn an oath. He suffered all a coward’s 
anguish at the prospective revival of the condemnation 
which in years past had been visited upon him for this 
affair, and which had hardly yet faded from men’s memories. 
He gazed into Cammeyer’s face with a pitiful look of misery 
and imploration. 

Cammeyer, who was a shrewd man, sprang at the oppor- 
tunity to make himself of service to Lane, as a means of 
accomplishing not only his deliverance but his revenge. 

“ Capt. Lane,” said he, “you remarked that you had a 
grudge against Oliver Chantilly. So have I — against both 
the Chantillys. Let us then come to terms.” 

“ Sir,” cried Lane, who, instead of waiting for Cammeyer’s 
offer, hastened, like a weak man, to make advances him- 
self, “I know those Chantillys. You will never rise so 
long as you serve under them. They are the chief men 
wherever they go. The devil himself can never get ahead 
of them. I know it, for I have tried.” 

Capt. Lane seemed unconscious of the self-disparagement 
which his hasty words implied. 

“ Lieut. Cammeyer,” he continued, “I can do more for you 
than they. I want to pay off a very ancient grudge. If you 
will tell me how I can do it, I will give you a safe return, 
and they shall never know you had a finger in the business.” 

Cammeyer caught at this suggestion, as a night-hawk 
snaps at a glow-worm. 


384 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Two ideas gleamed like twin stars in his mind — first his 
escape, next his revenge. Here was a chance for both. 
Quick in invention and fertile in expedients, he replied : 

“ Capt. Lane, listen. There’s a lady in the case. She 
belongs to me — she is mine — she made a formal gift of her- 
self to me — at least she did so by implication, which is the 
way that ladies always prefer. But notwithstanding this 
commitment of the woman by her free will to me, and to 
me alone, I have reason to believe that Philip Chantilly 
wants to capture her for himself.” 

“ Who is the lady ? ” 

“ She is Rodney Vail’s daughter, born on the Coromandel. 
And she is a beauty. She outvies anything from Grosvenor 
Square to Rio Janeiro.” 

Capt. Lane, in thinking how his deserted ship had come 
back again to mock him, and how she had brought with 
her a paragon, born and reared on a hulk which he had left 
to go to the bottom — was stung anew with the reflection 
that he would never again be able to hold up his head 
among honorable men. 

“Sir,” said he to Cammeyer, with mingled mildness and 
ferocity, “is she such a beauty as you say ?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“And she has promised you her hand ? ” 

“She has.” 

“And Philip Chantilly is interfering between you ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And do you want to punish him ? ” 

“I do.” 

“ How do you propose to do it ? ” 

“ By capturing the woman and marrying her at once.” 

“ The devil ! ” exclaimed Lane, who immediately tore 
off more paper and began dividing it into flakes of snow. 

A long talk then followed, during which the T two men 
warmed toward each other in a common purpose. 


EMBARKATION. 


385 


ec If you will deliver Miss Yail into my hands,” said 
Cammeyer — “ if you will make me appear to her to be her 
only protector — if you will lay her ' under an overwhelm- 
ing obligation of gratitude to me, so that I shall have 
the right to insist on her marrying me to repay it, I will 
reward you by ” 

“By what?” 

“ By delivering the Tamaqua into your hands.” 

‘ ‘ The devil ! ” exclaimed Lane, who continued tearing 
the paper, and listening with intense interest. 

“ How do you understand the compact ? ” inquired Cam- 
meyer, who felt that if there were any loose ends they 
should be tied at once. 

“ I understand,” replied Lane, “that I am to capture 
the woman and give her to you; in return for which you 
are to capture the Tamaqua and give her to me. In other 
words, a girl for a gunboat. A fair exchange no robbery.” 

“ Capt. Lane,” said Cammeyer, “ our understanding is 
complete.” 

The two men, with a smiling malice on their faces, and 
a foretoken of victory in their breasts, then discussed at 
full length a clever conspiracy by which they were to carry 
out their base plan. 

Meanwhile, in the thickening fog — which began at first 
to drizzle and at last to rain — the islanders had- resumed 
their old familiar quarters in the cabin of the Coromandel. 

“ This mist is very dense,” said Barbara. “ I hope 
Philip will not get on the coral reefs. Much as I wish him 
here, I almost wish him miles away. It is dangerous.” 

Barbara’s sweet rest in Philip was now a halcyon pleasure 
to her soul. She had experienced many exquisite sensa- 
tions in life, but this surpassed them all. The breakers 
roared on the outer side of the sand-bar, and filled her 
ears with their noise ; but she consciously heard only a still. 


38G 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


small voice whispering within her sonl. That one voice 
uttered but one name, “Philip.” A screaming gull flew 
past, and this too seemed to say “ Philip. ” The wind sighed 
softly by, and murmured the same sound, “Philip.” 
Barbara’s heart kept rushing to her lips, and she went 
about breathing the same charmed word, “ Philip.” 

“It is high time,” said Capt. Chantilly, “that Cam- 
meyer returned with the boat, bringing Philip with him. 
Either the Tamaqua has moved from her place, or else 
the fog hides her. She is not to be seen where she was.” 

Capt. Chantilly said this as the result of observations 
made on the hill-top, where he had been with Dr. Vail. 

“Do you think/’ asked Barbara, “that the Tamaqua 
would approach the coast in this fog ? ” 

“No,” replied Capt Chantilly; “but Philip could 
anchor the ship and come ashore in a boat. Cammeyer 
knows the way back. The fog ought not to prevent him 
from finding the island. The breakers ring like a fog- 
bell, and he has only to follow them southward to the 
mouth of the cove, and come up here in smooth water.” 

Barbara went to her old state-room, and, shutting the 
door, exclaimed, 

“It is cruel — this absence — this separation. The fog 
is like an enemy — a prison — a fate. I hate it ! In years 
past, I have gone through days of it together, and have 
not cared ; but now it suffocates me. 0 Philip, do you 
know how I long for you ? Can you guess that I am 
thinking of you ? ” And she buried her face in her hands. 

Jezebel crossed the cabin, muttering in her quaint, 
cheery way, 

“ What’s de good book say ? ‘At ebenin’ time there 
shall be light.’ Dey must a’ had lamps in dem days. 
So we must hab a lamp in ours.” 

She lighted the same old astral burner that once was 
blown out by the earthquake’s breath. 


EMBARKATION. 


387 


Barbara came forth from her solitude. 

The lighted lamp suggested to her a signal-fire on the 
hill-top. 

“ Perhaps,” thought she, “ Philip may be bewildered in 
the mists ; the fire, if I should kindle it, would guide him 
on his way.” 

Barbara thought of Hero’s light in the tower to guide 
Leander across the Hellespont. 

Dr. Vail and his daughter proceeded to the hill-top to 
kindle a fire. 

“ It will not be easy,” said he, “ to raise a bright flame 
in this mist and yapor ; we must stay and watch it, for if 
we turn our backs, it will go out. ” 

While the father and daughter were thus engaged on 
shore, a ship’s boat, containing four sailors to row it and 
two passengers sitting in the stern — one an old man in a 
pea-jacket, and the other a lady hooded in a water-proof 
cloak — glided briskly up the cove, and stopped at the 
Coromandel. 

“ Ship ahoy ! ” shouted the old man, standing in the 
dim light. 

So hearty was the stentorian voice that Oliver Chantilly, 
who was on deck at the time, recognized it as the organ- 
pipe of old John Scarborough. 

Capt. Chantilly acknowledged the salutation and asked, 

“ Where's my son Philip? ” 

“The lad,” said Scaw, “is lion the Tamaqua. He 
wouldn’t leave the ship without a proper hoflicer to stay 
behind. He sends letters — he sends me — and better than 
hall, he sends a fine lady.” 

Capt. Chantilly bowed to the fine lady, who acknowl- 
edged the courtesy. 

“ Why did not Philip leave Cammeyer in charge of the 
ship and come himself ? ” 


388 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“Cammeyer?” inquired Scaw. “Why, Cammeyer 
hisn’t lion the ship. Philip said as ’ow Cammeyer was on 
the ’hiland.” 

“ Cammeyer left the island this morning,” remarked 
Capt. Chantilly ; “he started with Robson and Carter in 
the boat to board the Tamaqua, lying off the coast in a fog.” 

“Well, then,” replied Scaw, “Cammeyer must a’ 
lost his way ’imself, for he has not been near the Tamaqua. 
And no more has the Tamaqua been lyin’ hoff the coast in 
a fog, — though it’s you who say it who mebbe ought to 
know your hown ship when you see her, — honly you can’t 
know her when you don’t see her.” 

During this colloquy Capt. Chantilly had indicated to the 
oarsmen to run their boat ashore, and by means of the 
ferry-basket to board the ship. 

The lady came first. 

“ I have not the honor of knowing you, madam,” said 
Oliver, as he handed her from the basket to the deck, “ but 
I suppose you are a very special and particular friend of 
Capt. Scarborough, since he keeps your name altogether 
to himself.” 

“ A lady,” said Scaw, speaking with an emphasis as if 
he were expounding a tenet of international law, “a lady 
has a right to keep her name to ’erself till she is willin’ to 
bestow it hon another; and hif this lady would drop hoff ’ers, 
I know a hold coye who would be ’appy to give her ’is” 

At which, Capt Scarborough, who was now fourscore 
years old, danced a step or two on the deck. 

“Holiyer, I halways said as ’ow I wasn’t too hold but I 
would live to dance on the Coromandel’s deck. An’ I’ye 
done it. Yes, demmit, and though I’ye been a powerful 
bachelor all my life, yet I wouldn’t mind a dancin’ at my 
own weddin’ at the ’leyenth hour.” 

Capt. Chantilly laughed, and saw that the old lion was 
in love. 


EMBARKATION. 


389 


The lady, who had been on the point of replying to 
Oliver, but was interrupted by the foregoing remarks of 
Scarborough, now remarked, 

“ I would be glad, sir, to go unannounced into the pres- 
ence of Mrs. Vail.” 

She said this with a gracious dignity of manner in strik- 
ing contrast with the roughness and bluffness of her leonine 
friend. 

Capt. Chantilly conducted the lady into the cabin. 

Mrs. Yail had taken for granted that the noise of feet 
which she heard overhead indicated the return of Philip 
and Cammeyer ; and she was regretting that Rodney and 
Barbara were absent on shore. 

Her surprise at noticing an unfamiliar female figure was 
followed at the next moment by the intense joy of behold- 
ing — after the lady threw aside her cloak and hood — the 
beloved form and face of Lucy Wilmerding ! 

The two women rushed into each other’s arms, speaking 
only through their wet eyes. 

Capt. Scarborough, when he met the Chantillys in 
Carlisle Bay, had accidentally, in the first flush of his 
eager greetings, and of his imparting the secret concern- 
ing the supposed Confederate steamer, forgotten to men- 
tion that Miss Wilmerding was then in Bridgetown. 

On the return of the Tamaqua to Barbados with news 
from the Coromandel, Lucy sought through. Capt. Scaw 
an interview with Philip, and begged permission to accom- 
pany the ship back to the island and to the exiles. 

She had at first hesitated about making this request, hav- 
ing incidentally learned that Lieut. Cammeyer— whom she 
had not seen, or heard from, for many a sad year — was on 
the island. She shrank from meeting him. Her pride 
and womanly reserve would- have prompted her to avoid 
coming face to face with the destroyer of her peace. But 
she reflected that, on Philip’s arrival at the island, Cam- 


390 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


meyer would immediately be put in charge of the Tamaqua, 
while Philip and she would go ashore ; and that therefore 
she would be quite as thoroughly aloof from the shunned 
man as if she were on another continent. 

Lucy had never ceased to love Cammeyer ; — for the 
divine flame, having once been set burning on the altar of 
her pure heart, remained like a vestal fire, unquenched ; 
but the shock which her false lover had given her had 
been so violent, and its effects so abiding, that despite her. 
ever-continuing love, nothing would have tempted Lucy 
Wilmerding to hold an interview with Anthony Cammeyer 
— unless, indeed, she should find him fallen into some 
misfortune. 

In such a case, it would be quite certain that his ex- 
tremity would touch in this deep-hearted woman those 
fountains of pity which in woman’s nature, like the waters 
of Jacob’s well, may lie sealed with a stone from sight, but 
which, when uncovered at need, are still found to be 
sweet, plentiful, and pure. 

John Scarborough, like Philip Chantilly, had not the 
slightest idea that Lucy Wilmerding and Anthony Cam- 
meyer had ever known each other — least of all that they ' 
had been betrothed. 

While Dr. Vail and Barbara were striving to make* the 
signal-fire burn on the hill- top — a task in which they 
fought their watery enemy, the mist — Lucy Wilmerding 
and Scarborough were holding an animated talk with Mrs. 
Vail in the cabin. 

This talk was interrupted by Jezebel, with numerous 
inquiries concerning her boy Pete. 

It was also interrupted by Beaver, who grumbled and 
growled, and was about to take Capt. Scaw by a trow- 
ser-leg, but was rebuked by the lifted forefinger of Mary 
Yail. 

Old Scaw was beside himself with delight. His words 


EMBARKATION. 


391 


went bellowing through the cabin like the explosion of 
hand-grenades. He walked round thumping the timbers 
with his knuckles, to assure himself that he was on board 
a real ship, rather than in an imaginary ark. He occasion- 
ally stopped in his pacings to peer into Mrs. Vail’s face, 
and to offer her the rude and sincere homage which the 
strong and robust awkwardly show to the fragile and weak. 

Capt. Scaw excited at first the merriment of Jezebel, 
whose sense of the ludicrous was strong ; but when he was 
asked to state his age, and responded eighty, the old wom- 
an grew instantly jealous of his slightly superior years, 
and plainly showed her pique at being dispossessed from 
her position as patriarch of the ship. 

The old man’s attentions to Lucy Wilmerding were so 
marked and incessant as to be embarrassing to that lady. 

Meanwhile Oliver Chantilly carefully perused the fol- 
lowing letter from his son : 


On Board the Tamaqua.— At Sea, Sept. 22, 1864. 

My Dear Father — 

On reaching Carlisle Bay, I steamed up past Needham’s Point, and 
on ranging Fort Charles with St. Anne’s Castle, anchored for the 
night. 

The wind was high, with dashes of rain, yet there was nothing 
like the tornado which the barometer threatened, and which at one 
time I expected. 

At 9 p.m. I took Forsyth with me ashore, and we visited the 
American Consul ; — from whom I received intelligence that a Con- 
federate cruiser, the Good Hope — commander unknown — is prowling 
about these waters, seeking, like a she-devil, for what she may 
devour. 

Early the next morning Capt. Scarborough came on board, bring- 
ing with him, to my surprise, Miss Lucy Wilmerding ; — who is now 
a resident of Bridgetown, and of whom the- veteran seems to be ex- 
traordinarily fond. The old man has quite changed his crusty 
opinions about women. 

Acting on the Consul’s information, I have deemed it my duty to 


392 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


spend part of two days in skirting these islands to find the rebel 
fox’s den ; — which will explain my delay to return. 

If you or Cammeyer were on board, so that I could leave the ship 
with some older head than Forsyth’s, I would now give three drops 
of my heart’s blood to go ashore to see Barbara. 

But it seems my perverse fate to be separated from the one object 
in this world that most reminds me of the next. 

I shall put to sea far enough to-night to give all the Grenadines 
a wide berth, and shall crawl back early in the morning to pick you - 
up and hold a council of war. 

An American merchant ship — the Demarara — is at Bridgetown, 
loading with sugar. She is commanded by — guess whom ? Capt. 
John Blaisdell, the Coromandel’s first mate, who helped the passengers 
into the boats during the fire. He sends his hearty regards to Dr. 
Vail and family, and hopes the Coromandel will get to Bridgetown 
before the Demarara sets sail. His eyes filled with tears when I told 
him the story of the wandering hulk and her little company. He is 
a brave and manly fellow, and his ship is a beauty — he deserves as 
good a one as ever sailed. 

There was a report at the Custom-House that the new governor of . 
Barbados is to be Sir Richard Wilkinson, whose arrival is every 
day expected. 

The Coromandel will be an interesting curiosity to the baronet ! 

The enclosed letter you will please deliver by your own hand in 
private. 

Your oft-vexing and now vexed son, 

Philip Chantilly. 

The “enclosed” in the above was a letter from Philip 
to Barbara — the second in the modern system of postal 
communication which had proved so great a novelty to 
the primitive mind of this fair maid. 

“ Hark ! ” said Mrs. Vail, “ I hear footsteps on the deck. 
Rodney and Barbara are returning. My dear Lucy, here 
is Barbara’s chamber. Hide yourself in it, and I will send 
her to find you there.” 

Mrs. Vail conducted Lucy to Barbara’s room, and light- 
ing a little lamp on a rack, left her sitting in the light. 

Mrs. Vail, on coming forth, and closing the door behind 


EMBARKATION. 


393 


her, met Barbara just as she came tripping down the 
cabin-stairs. 

“ 0 ! ” exclaimed the flushed girl, at witnessing strange 
men in the cabin. 

Her father was equally surprised. 

Then came a tumult of excitement — a pell-mell of in- 
troductions, hand-shakings, explanations, and joy-wishes ; 
during all which Capt. Scarborough ruled the scene as 
before, — or rather, he was its “lord of misrule.” 

His great sides did not seem capacious enough to con- 
tain his overflowing spirits. He roared with irrepressible 
hilarity. He was on the point of tossing Barbara into the 
air as he used to do with Philip, but reflecting that he 
would bump her head against the deck-beams, he wisely 
refrained from killing her with kindness. 

Barbara was the common delight and treasure of all, — an 
object of supreme happiness to everybody except herself ; 
for she suffered a pang of disappointment at the absence 
of Philip. 

Oapt. Chantilly, who noticed this shade, slyly handed 
her Philip’s letter, which she instantly fled away with to 
her own room. 

What was her surprise to see herself there confronted by 
a beautiful woman, who rose, and, with a tender and gra- 
cious gaze, looked into her face without saying a word ! 

Had Barbara seen an incorporeal spirit, she could not 
have been more completely astonished, subdued, and 
awed ! 

Here was one of her own sex — one of the great world of 
women — one of the fair sisterhood to whom she herself 
belonged — a real and not a shadowy Narcissa. Barbara 
was no longer in exile. She was at last in society. 

She saw at a glance that, whoever her visitor might be, 
she was a benignant lady, tall, majestic, and elegant. 

A few threads of early gray in her hair seemed to inter- 


394 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


lace her youth and her maturer life into one ripening 
comeliness, borrowed from both seasons. Her eyes were 
black, and burned with large yet gentle lights. Her face 
possessed that uncommon type of beauty which is height- 
ened instead of hurt by a mournful expression ; as if the 
ineffable dignity of some inward grief marked itself on 
the outer front. 

It is the instinct of all women, when they meet as 
strangers, to look at each other thoroughly before they speak. 

These two women stood speechless, face to face ; both 
beautiful, but utterly unlike ; one past the heyday of her 
youth, the other just mounting toward it ; one pale, the 
other flushed ; one brunette, the other blonde — each per- 
fect according to her type. 

The two together seemed to outshine the lamplight, and 
to be themselves the illumination of the room. 

“My darling,” said the elder, “this is a strange hour. 
I am not sure that I ought to believe my eyes — they report 
to me such incredible marvels. I knew your mother when 
she was young — before her marriage. Your forehead is 
like hers ; so is your mouth ; but that is all the resem- 
blance. 0 what beautiful hair you have ! — and what a 
sweet face ! God has favored you, my darling. Beauty is 
one of heaven’s best gifts to woman. And so you are Mrs. 
Tail’s daughter ! I would not have known you. To think 
that I have lived to see both her and you ! And to think 
that you have had such a strange, such a romantic, such a 
fabulous life. Ah, well, I too have had a strange life. All 
lives are strange, my child. It is a strange world.” 

After Lucy had hurriedly made these remarks, Barbara, 
who was not yet recovered of her astonishment, showed 
no disposition to speak, but only to listen. 

Lucy, in speaking, appeared more than ever a monument 
of beauty to Barbara’s eyes. Ho woman whom Barbara 
had seen pictured in the books, or whom she had mirrored 


EMBARKATION. 


395 


in her mind, was equal in comeliness to this impressive 
stranger. 

There was a perfume that exhaled from her as from a 
delicate flower — there was a graciousness in her presence 
that fell upon Barbara like a benediction. 

The unknown visitor put her arms about the younger 
maid, and pressed her to her heart. 

“Iam glad,” said Barbara, who had now regained her 
self-possession and her tongue, “ very glad — 0 more glad 
than I can tell — to see any friend of my mother. You are 
most welcome. You will remember that I am a stranger 
to all my mother’s friends — so please tell me your name.” 

“ Ah,” said Lucy, “ I wish you might guess it.” 

“ I cannot,” replied Barbara. “ Pray, dear lady, tell 
me who you are.” 

“ Your mother always loved me,” said Lucy , — “ will 
you love me, I wonder ? ” 

“ Yes,” responded Barbara, with a bountiful emphasis, 
“I am sure of it.” 

“ Will you promise ?” 

“ Yes, fair lady,” returned Barbara, who once again re- 
sorted to the stately salutations of the story-books. And 
as she gazed into Lucy’s dark, lustrous eyes, she saw in 
them more loveliness than she had supposed to exist among 
women. 

“I am Lucy Wilmerding.” 

Barbara leaped back. Her astonishment was supreme. 
She had never once thought of Lucy as other than fixed in 
an immortality of youth — a creature who had been born at 
seventeen, and had always remained at that original and 
unchanging age. 

Then a sudden flood of feeling overcame her, and swept 
away all her doubts. 

Bushing up to her, she clasped her idol to her breast, 
and exclaimed, amid her tears, 


396 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ 0 Lucy ! Lucy ! ” 

The Lucy Wilmerding of Barbara’s imagination was an 
entirely different person from the Lucy who now stood be- 
fore her : and yet the real Lucy was not less noble — but 
even more so — than her prototype. 

“Yes,” she exclaimed, “you are worthy to be Lucy 
Wilmerding ! ” and she kissed her as one princess would 
kiss another. “ Dear, darling, beloved Lucy ! I am proud 
to belong to the human race since you and — and — since 
you, my dear, belong to it.” 

Barbara and Lucy held each other in their mutual arms 
as two flowering vines intertwine themselves into one. 

When this embrace was at last unlocked, Barbara found 
herself holding a crumpled letter in her hand, at sight of 
which she showed a look of pity and distress, as if the 
little white object were some living thing whose life had 
been ruthlessly crushed. 

“0,” said she, eagerly, “I hope it is not harmed.” 

“ No,” remarked Lucy, who knew that Philip had sent 
this letter to Barbara, and who was charmed to see the 
pure girl’s passion for him written so plainly on her face, 
“ I suspect that it contains something which even death 
itself cannot kill.” 

“What is that ? ” asked Barbara, who thought of some 
other piece of durable metal, like the gold ring which the 
former letter enclosed. 

“Love,” answered Lucy. 

Barbara blushed into a charming unison with the crim- 
son wall of her chamber. 

“I am afraid,” retorted Lucy, with a gentle satire in 
her tone, “ that he has omitted to write one thing which 
he said to me this morning on the ship.” 

•“0 what was that ? ” inquired Barbara, anxious that no 
precious word that fell from Philipps lips should go to 
waste. 


EMBARKATION. 


397 


“ My darling,” responded Lucy, “ Lieut. Chantilly told 
me that you were the loveliest woman that had ever yet 
lived on earth.” 

What Philip wrote in that letter, Barbara did not 
communicate to her friend, but appropriated entirely to 
herself. 

It is a mistake to suppose that love is a generous passion. 
It is the chief greed possible to human nature. It is the 
selfishness of great hearts. It is the avarice of God. 

Lucy Wilmerding, with all the beauty of her living pres- 
ence, was less to Barbara than a little crumpled note-sheet 
in the handwriting of Philip Chantilly. 

So Lucy stepped forth from the state-room to meet Dr. 
Yail, whom she had not yet seen — leaving Barbara alone 
with her letter and her love. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


AGATHA. 


‘'TER an evening of the most animated talk ever heard 



-AJL_ on board the Coromandel since the days when her 
cabin was full of outward-bound passengers seventeen 
years before, the company broke up about midnight and 
scattered to their state-rooms ; Barbara and Lucy sleeping 
together in No. 13 ; that is, if two talkative women can 
be said to sleep when they spend nearly the whole night 
in confidential chat. 

The souls of women are like nightingales ; their sweet- 
est discourse with each other is at night. 

Barbara and Lucy told each other the story of their 
lives — making such reservation as each narrator thought 
to be dictated by a proper modesty; that is, Barbara told 
hers, omitting a too open reference to Philip ; and Lucy 
hers, studiously disguising her acquaintance with Cam- 
meyer. 

“ Darling Lucy, you have gone through the whole 
world. You have seen everything. Which is the loveliest 
thing of all ? ” 

Lucy smiled, and replied, 

“ My sweet Barbara, one of our poets — a woman too — 
asks the question. 


‘ What’s the best thing in the world ? ’ 


And her answer is. 


AGATHA. 


399 


“ * Something out of it, I think.’ ” 

“0 Lucy,” whispered Barbara, “I think the most beau- 
tiful thing in the world must be a little child — a sweet 
babe in its mother’s arms. This is a sight I never saw.” 

“ My darling,” replied Lucy, — to whom the thought of 
never having seen a child communicated a powerful sense 
of Barbara’s complete isolation from the world, — “you 
have lived such a lonely life on the ship — in such extreme 
and uncommon exile from mankind — that you seem like 
the heroine of a romantic tale. I would not be surprised 
if some writer would one day make a romance out of your 
adventures.” 

Barbara knew from Oapt. Chantilly’s conversation that 
Lucy Wilmerding was a broken-hearted womati, but did 
not tell Lucy what the Captain had said on this sad sub- 
ject, hoping to hear the tale from her own lips. 

The disguised narrative which Lucy told ran as follows : 

“ You already know,” said she, “that after my mother 
died, my father and I went to Europe.” 

“ Yes.” 

“You know also that my father was very rich.” 

“Yes.” 

“ Well, his intention was to enjoy foreign lands in a 
rich man’s lavish way.” 

“How splendid!” interrupted Barbara, her eyes burn- 
ing in the darkness at the magnificent thought. 

“ So, for four or five years, my father and I traversed 
Europe — going everywhere. We lived in Paris — we lived 
in Madrid — we lived in Rome — we lived wherever there 
was life. We sought music and pictures — everything 
lovely and attractive. We drank the full cup of all pure 
pleasures. ” 

“ How delicious ! ” exclaimed Barbara, feeling the wine 
of this description flowing in her blood. 


400 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Then my father had many troubles, in the midst of 
which he died.” 

“ 0 how sad ! ” whispered Barbara. 

“ His death occurred at Florence.” 

Tears came into Barbara’s eyes. 

“ He was buried in the Protestant graveyard there.” 

Barbara, who had invoked the telling of this tale, almost 
wished that Lucy would stop it. 

“ Then I was left alone — a stranger in a strange land.” 

“ How dreadful ! What did you do ? ” 

At this point Lucy hesitated, bub finally went on as 
follows : 

“ I was all alone in the world save for — save for Agatha, 
my other self, whom you shall see to-morrow when we 
reach Bridgetown. I must tell you that Agatha was en- 
gaged to a young American naval-officer, whose name she 
forbids me to mention. Her lover — though I think he 
never loved her — was a splendid man in appearance — tall 
and stately. But he had a sordid mind, and when he found 
that the supposed heiress — I mean Agatha — would not in- 
herit her father’s fortune — (for her father told him jestingly 
that he was going to bequeath all his property, not to his 
daughter, but to a public charity) — the young lover, who 
proved to possess no true love, made cunning excuses for 
postponing the marriage, and finally deserted her forever. 
She — that is, Agatha — never saw him afterward, nor has she 
received a solitary word from him from that day to this.” 

“ Perhaps he died,” said Barbara, who could not com- 
prehend such conduct in a living man toward a loving 
woman ; and she felt, too, that there was a strange simi- 
larity between Agatha’s case and what she had supposed to 
be Lucy’s own. 

“No, he did not die,” said Lucy. “He has since been 
heard from in Japan, in South America, and in the Ameri- 
can war.” 


AGATHA. 


401 


“ It must be such a help to Agatha,” said Barbara, “ to 
have a real sister — not such a foolish image of one as / had 
in Harcissa.” 

“I clung to Agatha,” responded Lucy, “because I had 
nothing else to cling to. Among my father’s financial asso- 
ciates,” she continued, “was an old man — James Scar- 
borough, twin brother to him whom you have seen 
to-night. If you had ever seen James you would have 
thought him perhaps out of his mind. At least, that was 
his lawyer’s defence of him in court. But it did not avail. 
He had become involved in speculations, and had taken 
trust-funds, my father’s deposits among them, ruining my 
father and others.” 

“What are trust-funds?” asked Barbara, who knew 
nothing of money or its uses, except to regard a few coins 
as picturesque curiosities. 

“ Trust-funds,” said Lucy, “ are other people’s money. 
Old Mr. Scarborough, finding himself in difficulty, took 
other people’s money to help him out.” 

“ Well,” said Barbara, “if he was in trouble, and other 
people’s money would relieve him, would they not be glad 
that he took it ? ” 

“Ho, my child; on the contrary, they were very 
angry because he took it. He was sentenced for five 
years.” 

“ What do you mean by sentenced for five years ? ” in- 
quired Barbara, whose opportunities for reading police- 
reports had been limited. 

“I mean,” said Lucy, “that he was condemned to im- 
prisonment for five ]ong years.” 

“0,” exclaimed Barbara, “how cruel to treat a good 
old man in that way !” 

Lucy could not make Barbara comprehend the sin of 
embezzlement and forgery, so she dropped this point, and 
went on with her story. 


402 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“My father’s American stocks were thrown on the 
market and sacrificed.” 

Barbara listened, not understanding what was meant by 
stocks, or their being thrown on the market and sacrificed ; 
but she did not wish to interrupt the narrative by showing 
her ignorance ; so she asked no question for her financial 
enlightenment. 

The truth is, Barbara knew quite as much of finance 
as Lucy did, for both together knew nothing : — in which 
respect they resembled some of the proudest statesmen of 
the present day. 

“ My father,” continued Lucy, “in consequence of the 
losses which he suffered through old Mr. Scarborough, be- 
came a bankrupt.” 

“A bankrupt!” thought Barbara. “I wonder what 
that is ! ” 

But she made no inquiry. 

“It was this misfortune,” continued Lucy, “that so 
preyed on my father’s mind as to drive him into his 
grave. ” 

Barbara inferred that bankruptcy was a subtle disease 
of which men die : — and she was not far wrong. 

“Well,” continued Lucy, “Mrs. Scarborough, the old 
man’s wife, then told me that she had a moderate income 
in her own right, and begged me to live in her family, 
saying that this was the only reparation she could ever 
hope to make for the losses which her husband had en- 
tailed on my father. So I went — Agatha and I — to live 
with Mrs. Scarborough in a small country-place just out 
of London. I lived there — Agatha and I — for five years. 
Then Mr. Scarborough’s term expired.” 

“What does that mean ?” asked Barbara, who now felt 
that she must ask some necessary questions or else she 
would not understand the story. 

“It means,” said Lucy, “that after the old man had 


AGATHA. 


403 


stayed five years in prison, he was then let out, and he re- 
turned to his home.” 

“How glad,” exclaimed Barbara, “his family must 
have been to see him ! ” 

“ I never saw,” said Lucy, “ such a sad face as his. It 
was sorrow’s self. From the day of his sentence, he never 
smiled. He looked a hundred years old, though only sev- 
enty. I — Agatha and I — could not bear to stay, he seemed 
so ashamed to meet me at the table ; and I resolved to 
go. ‘ No,’ said Mrs. Scarborough, ‘ it will pain him if 
you go.’ So we stayed. 

“ It then became (strange to say) a still more pleasant 
home for me than ever. He was a stricken and penitent 
man, and would weep like a child at any tenderness shown 
to him. I — Agatha and I — would comb his white locks, 
he would sit like a dead man, bolt upright in his chair, 
never speaking except with his eyes. Such helplessness 
and heart-break I never saw. 

“ His one and only thought was, ‘ How can I undo the 
wrong ? I can never undo it in my life. I must suffer for 
it till death. And unless God shall prove more merciful 
than man, I shall continue to suffer for it after death.’ 

“At length, to get him away from the scene of his 
wrong-doing, his wife persuaded him to take the family 
out of England, and go to one of the colonies. 

“ First they thought of Cape Town. But the old man’s 
brother lived there — high in the esteem of the community 
— and the culprit would not go where he thought his 
presence might fling a shadow on the one remaining good 
name in the family. So we went to live in Barbados, 
where Mrs. Scarborough’s moderate means would suffice, 
to support the family. That was several years ago, and 
yet it seems only yesterday. 

“Then Mrs. Scarborough died. This was the final 
blow that broke the old man’s heart. He was seventy- 


404 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


seven years old. I — Agatha and I — not haying any re- 
maining ambition in life — for we had lost early what 
others lose late — that is, we had lost everything — well, 
having nothing to gain elsewhere, I stayed with the old 
man — Agatha and I — and helped his tottering steps down- 
ward toward the tomb.” 

“He died ?” asked Barbara. 

“ Yes ; and his funeral was one of the largest ever held 
in Barbados. All hearts were touched and melted. 

“ Notification was then sent to Capt. John Scarborough 
at Cape Town to come and settle the estate. 

“ Before Capt. Scarborough arrived, I had gone — 
Agatha and I — to live with the Sisters of Mercy ; not as a 
member of the order, but the convent employed me to in- 
struct the choir, in return for which I had a residence in 
the building without cost.” 

“ Dear Lucy,” said Barbara, “ how different your life 
has been from what I imagined it ! ” 

“ Ah, Barbara, few lives ever fulfill their early promise. 
I had too much of sunshine at the beginning not to need 
the shadow at last. God knows best.” 

“ Please go on,” said Barbara, who drank every word as 
from a fountain, half bitter and half sweet. 

“When Capt. Scarborough came and opened the will,” 
said Lucy, “he found the property to be £3,000, all be- 
queathed to me; with a statement, written in the old 
man’s trembling hand, that the little money which he was 
able to leave belonged morally to Lawrence Wilmerding’s 
daughter, who would have inherited the same and a thou- 
sand times more from her father, had not her father been 
brought to ruin by the testator’s acts. 

“This will pleased Capt. Scarborough, who said in his 
quaint way, ‘ Miss Lucy, my brother was always out of 
his ’ed, but never out of his ’art. His ’ed was always 
wrong, but his ’art always right.’ 


AGATHA. 


405 


“ It makes me laugh, Barbara, to think of the amusing 
talk of this living brother concerning the dead. He never 
defended, yet never abused him. He always spoke of him 
with a comical gayety and affection. He is eighty years 
old — and yet you see him hale and lively — he is a fine 
specimen of an old bachelor. And only think, Barbara, — 
but no, you cannot guess what he wanted to do.” 

“ What was it ? ” 

“Why, he wanted to marry me ! ” 

“ What did you say to him P ” 

“ 0, I answered that I would never marry any living 
man.” 

“ Dear Lucy, do you mean never to marry ?” 

“ I marry ! ” 

Barbara felt that she had touched a dangerous subject, 
and diverting the conversation from Lucy’s own case, said, 

“ Did Agatha forgive the man who proved so unworthy 
of her ? Did she cease to love him ? Does this base man 
live still ? ” 

“ Barbara, I must not speak of what Agatha never 
mentions. Every heart knoweth its own bitterness. All 
persons who see Agatha, even without a word from her 
lips, and in spite of her efforts at concealment, discover 
that she is a sorrow-stricken woman, walking her shadowed 
way through the world, seeking for some quiet gate out 
of it. 

“ Barbara, I have seen a great deal of the world — you , 
a very little of it ; but it is of small consequence to see 
much or little ; happiness is here — here alone,” and she 
pressed her hand with pathetic emphasis against her sad 
heart. “Ah, yes, if even the kingdom of God is within 
us, as the canon of Scripture says, then of course the 
lesser kingdom of the world must find room within us 
also. 

“ I mean that everything is in the heart. The heart is 


406 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


the life. Agatha has gained nothing by seeing the world ; 
yon have lost nothing by not seeing it. Indeed, Agatha 
has lost everything; yon have gained everything. My 
darling, you are looking forward eagerly to the world 
which yon are about to enter ; and I can tell you in ad- 
vance the most that yon will find in it.” 

“ 0 what ? ” 

“ You will find in the world chiefly what you carry into 
it. Life will be little or much to you according to the 
fate or fortune of your heart’s love. You are very happy, 
and I can tell you the secret of your happiness. It is not 
because you are about to enter the world, but because you 
have found a true love and a true lover. Give a woman 
these two blessings — love and a lover — and you may then 
deny her everything else. Love — fulfilled in a lover — this 
is woman’s all in all. 

“ If you should ask Agatha — I mean when you see her 
to-morrow — which of all the world’s treasures is chief, 
she would point to the one she lost ; the loss of her first, 
her last, her only possible love ; — no, not her love, but her 
lover. Her love she can never, never lose — it is only her 
lover that is gone. But when her lover went, all the world 
went with him. So Agatha knows that nothing now re- 
mains for her but heaven.” 

Barbara, whose interest was intense in Lucy’s conversa- 
tion, pressed her with questions concerning the man whom 
Agatha loved — his character and history ; — but Lucy 
evaded them on the plea, as before, of her obligation of 
reticence concerning Agatha’s secrets. 

“ Ah, Barbara, I must tell you what is going to happen 
to Agatha.” 

“Go on,” urged Barbara, emphatically. 

“ After Agatha,” resumed her autobiographer, “ took 
up her quiet abode in the convent — though she was no 
more a part of it than her lodgment in a country-inn 


AGATHA. 


407 


would have made her a part of that — she nevertheless 
became greatly attached to the Sisters of Mercy. Mother 
Dionysia would say to her, f To those who forget them- 
selves, and who remember only God, there can be no other 
sorrows except the sorrows of the Saviour which He suf- 
fered for our joy, and the sorrows of others to whom we 
are to carry this joy.’ Agatha became intimate with the 
youngest of the novitiates. This was Sister Angela. She 
was an orphan at school in the convent. At fifteen she 
prepared herself to be a nun, although she could not take 
the white veil until seventeen.” 

“ What is the white veil ? ” 

“It is a garment the nuns wear — a badge of their- 
order. At seventeen, Angela looked the merest child. 
She was a blonde, just like you ; her hair, before it was 
cut off, was like yours. And, 0, such deep and quiet blue 
eyes ! She was very slight, and never well — any little raw 
wind gave her a distressing cough. When the dear girl 
began to fade away, I could have taken out the heart from 
my own breast and put it into hers if that would have 
kept her alive. 

“ One day the dear child crossed herself and turned so 
pale that I knew she must be dying. I immediately ran 
for the Mother Superior to come to the bedside. She 
came, and bent over dear Angela, kissed her, and put the 
crucifix to the sufferer’s lips. The little maid clasped 
it with her white hands, and kissed it so passionately that 
I am sure her kiss must have thrilled the heart of our 
Lord in heaven. 

“ Then the little thing’s teeth chattered. I ran to my 
cell and brought a soft flannel which I spread over the 
dying girl. ‘ Darling,’ said I, 6 this will make you a little 
warmer.’ 

“ ‘ 0 no,’ she said meekly. ( It cannot keep out the 
chill of death. Dear Agatha, bend low — I have something 


408 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


to ask you. Listen. If I go, will you take my place — 
will you wear the white veil ? ’ 

“ Agatha trembled and made no reply. 

“ ‘Dear Agatha, speak to me,’ said she. ‘ What mes- 
sage shall I bear from you to our blessed Mother Mary ? 
Will you take my place — will you wear the white veil ?’ 

“ Agatha answered not a word, but sat wrestling as 
with life and death, with time and eternity. 

“ ‘ 0, my sister Agatha, promise to take my place when 
I am gone — will you wear the white veil ?’ ” 

Barbara was now weeping at Lucy’s mournful tale. 

“0 Barbara,” said Lucy, “no heart, not even of stone, 
could have held out against such an appeal.” 

“ What did Agatha reply ? ” asked Barbara. 

“ She said, ‘ Yes, Angela, I promise — I promise to take 
your place — I promise, to wear the white veil.’ 

“ Then the holy candle was lighted and put into the 
dying girl’s hands in token that she was a virgin whose 
light was burning ; and as its flame overspread her face, 
she opened her eyes and exclaimed in a voice like music, 

“ ‘ Behold, the bridegroom cometh ! ’ 

“ Dear Barbara, Agatha, faithful to her vow, is to take 
Angela’s place in the Convent of St. Carliola, and will 
publicly assume the white veil on Sunday next. You will 
arrive in Bridgetown just in time to witness the cere- 
mony.” 

“ Do you think,” asked Barbara, “ that Agatha will find 
any rest in the nunnery ? ” 

“ 0 no, Agatha does not go there for rest ; that would 
be misery for her ; that would tempt her to brood over the 
past ; she wants, not rest, but active toil. She joins the 
Sisters of Mercy to be clothed with their habit, and to go 
out every day to tasks for the relief of human suffering. ” 

“Dear Lucy, what is the ceremony of taking the white 
veil?” 


AGATHA. 


409 


“ When we arrive,” answered Lucy, “ yon shall see the 
ceremony with your own eyes.” 

“ What is the white veil made of ? ” 

“ It is made of simple muslin.” 

“ 0 Lucy, I have a lovely piece of muslin. It is French, 
and soft as velvet. It is many years old, but white as 
snow. May I give it to Agatha for her veil ? ” 

“ Yes, my darling, “ whispered Lucy, “ but if Agatha is 
to receive from you the white veil of a nun, then you must 
receive from her the white veil of a bride.” 

As the night waned, there was much other talk between 
Barbara and Lucy, until at last the two women fell asleep 
in each other’s arms. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


SURPRISE. 

B ETWEEN midnight and morning the fog thinned 
away, and the stars peeped out. 

Every soul on the Coromandel slept. 

Beaver, too, was among the sleepers — an unwatchful 
watch-dog; for although Barbara, early in the evening, 
had led him from his down-stairs kennel and stationed him 
on deck with orders to remain there as a sentry all night, 
and particularly to give a loud bark of welcome in case of 
Philip’s approach, yet the burden of the old dog’s age hung 
heavily on his eyelids and weighed him down into a deep 
slumber at his post. 

Had Beaver been awake, he would now have barked ; for 
a boat full of men was stealthily rowing toward the ship, 
with muffled oars, in the gray dawn. 

It was a boat from the Good Hope, arid the men were 
armed to the teeth. 

Chiswick K. Lane was standing on the boat’s bow, peer- 
ing at the Coromandel to make sure of her doubtful 
identity. He had once been the Coromandel’s captain ; 
he was now coming to be her captor. 

Cammeyer was not among the boat’s company, but had 
been left behind on the Good Hope, to save appearances. 
He was there guarded in free confinement as a prisoner- 
of-war. 


410 


SURPRISE. 


411 


The boat-load of conspirators drew nigh the anchored 
hulk in silence. 

“Can it be possible that I see the Coromandel once 
more ? ” thought Lane. 

The agitated man, notwithstanding the positive proof 
which Cammeyer had given him of the ship’s identity, did 
not dismiss his last remaining doubt until he drew close 
under the bow, and dimly saw the old craft’s gilded name. 

There it was ! 

The begrimed letters — blurred yet recognizable — seemed 
to certify that he had committed perjury. In reading the 
ship’s name, he read in it his whole past history. The 
mildew that gangrened the one seemed typical of the stain 
that defiled the other. 

“ God’s vengeance !” he cried. “It is the Coromandel 
— afloat — safe — sound ! ” 

Ordering his men to remain in the boat, he climbed 
noiselessly to the deck, and walked from the bow as far 
aft as the mizzenmast. 

“ Yes,” he whispered, “ the same water-tanks, the same 
wheel, the same compass — all the same as of old.” 

Turning round to walk back again toward the bow, his 
elbow accidentally jostled against a bucket which stood 
on the edge of the binnacle, and knocked it to the 
deck. 

Wakened by the noise, Beaver slowly opened his eyes, 
leisurely shook his shaggy sides, and sedately stepped 
forth from the midst of a coil of rope in which he had 
kenneled himself during the night. 

“ The devil ! ” exclaimed Lane. “ The same dog ! I 
can remember his brown coat before it had a gray hair. 
Beaver, lie down ! ” 

This command, spoken in a low voice, was accompanied 
with a threatening scowl to enforce it ; for Beaver began 
to make noisy and joyful demonstrations. 


412 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


He had evidently identified Capt. Lane as his old 
master of seventeen years before — just as the dog Argus 
recognized Ulysses on that hero’s return after an absence 
of twenty. 

“ Lie down, I say,” repeated Lane. 

Beaver wagged his tail — put his fore-paws against Lane’s 
breast — and wheezed forth his salutation to his old master 
in a manner most unwelcome. 

“ Hush, Beaver ! ’’ whispered Lane again, — patting him 
on the head, and trying persuasion instead of authority ; 
but joy is not easily repressed, either in men or dogs ; 
and the more Beaver was commanded and cajoled, the 
more he grew delighted and irrepressible. 

“Down!” ordered Lane, pointing with his finger; 
hut Beaver only took this to be a satirical invitation to do 
the opposite ; so he leaped up once more against his old 
master’s breast. 

“ Take that, then ! ” said Lane, striking him a stinging 
blow on his right ear, to stop his congratulatory barking ; 
but the dog accepted the buffet in kindness, and replied 
with noisier barks. 

“ Damn the cur ! ” muttered Lane, “ he will wake the 
ship’s company before the time.” 

Whereupon the desperado drew a bowie-knife, and as 
the unsuspecting and kindly creature once more leaped up 
against him, the inhuman wretch swung back his arm to 
its utmost reach, drove forward the glittering blade with 
full force and momentum, and plunged it to the hilt in 
the old dog’s throat ! 

0 shades of heroes ! — think of Ulysses poniarding Argus 
in return for the dumb brute’s welcome to the master of his 
youth ! 

Beaver, under the murderous blow, fell heavily to the 
deck — groaning — gasping — and quivering in a pool of his 
own blood. 


SURPRISE. 


413 


Lane ran to the ship’s bow, and bending over, motioned 
to his men to ascend. 

They were barefoot — shod with silence. They ran up 
like squirrels. On reaching the deck, they formed in line 
— numbering twelve marines and a lieutenant. 

Not a loud word escaped their lips. 

Lane stole on tiptoe toward the stairway leading to the 
cabin ; when suddenly Barbara, — who, having awaked at 
Beaver’s joyful bark, had robed herself with glad haste, 
and had fled with winged footsteps to the deck to be the 
first to welcome the coming guest, — now exultingly ac- 
costed the conspirator in the faint gray light with the 
ringing exclamation — 

“ Philip ! ” 

But at the next moment her eyes cruelly corrected this 
happy error of her heart, and she discovered — not Philip 
— but a strange man with a bloody weapon in his hand. 

“ Where is Philip ?” she wondered, full of alarm and 
distress. “ And who are these menacing men ? Why have 
they come ? 0 what if they are pirates ! ” 

Catching sight of the bleeding dog, she uttered a scream. 

“ 0 Beaver, what is this ? Blood ? Are you killed ? 0 
Beaver ! My dog, my dear dog ! ” 

Beaver, recognizing her voice, lifted his head — turned 
toward her his closed eyes, which he could not open — gave 
a faint moan, which was all the response he could make — 
crawled as near as possible to hpr feet. — drooped his head 
against the deck — quivered convulsively— gasped — and was 
dead. 

Barbara, in tempestuous anger, confronted Capt. Lane, 
exclaiming, 

“ What murderer are you, who have slain my dog ! Quit 
this deck ! Go, bloody and brutal man ! 0 stay ! — what 

have you done to Philip ? Have you killed him , too ? Is 
Philip dead ? Tell me, sir !— 0 speak ! ” 


414 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Your dog ? ” sneered Lane, who cringed at the spec- 
tacle of the girl’s misery. “Not yours, my lady, but 
mine — he was my dog. A man may kill his own dog — may 
he not ? This dog belonged to this ship, and this ship be- 
longed to me, and both were mine before you were born.” 

Hearing these incredible and preposterous words, Bar- 
bara felt that she was in the presence of some maniac or 
sayage, who was inventing a horrible tale such as she had 
read in the plots of books. 

“ 0 Beaver ! ” she exclaimed, bending over him in grief, 
“ I have lived with you all my life — romped with you — 
taught you tricks — fed you — watched over you — and now I 
see you killed ! — murdered ! 0 my dear old dog ! ” 

Her father, who heard the noise, came up stairs, and 
seeing his daughter prostrate on the deck, and Beaver dead 
beside her, and blood near them, and a bloody-handed man 
standing over them, imagined that his beloved Barbara 
had been murdered, and that the strange man was her 
murderer. 

A sudden icy fire, like the sting of cold, pricked and 
burned Dr. Vail’s pulse. 

Leaping upon the assassin, he recognized a familiar face. 

“ Lane !” he cried. “Miscreant! Having abandoned 
us to one death, do you revisit us with another ? It shall 
be your last crime.” 

Dr. Vail clutched him by the throat, and in the twink- 
ling of an eye threw him, heavily down into the pool of 
the dog’s blood, from which Lane rose stained. 

The twelve marines, during this scene of violence, re- 
mained motionless, for Lane had instructed them against 
making any demonstration except at his positive command: 
— a precaution to avoid infringing the neutrality laws. 

Capt. Chantilly now appeared on deck, followed by old 
Scarborough. 

“ What means this bloody business ? ” asked the captain 


SURPRISE. 


415 


of the Tamaqua, who saw at a glance that it was a strata- 
gem of war. 

The hour for Lane’s mancenyre had been fixed by Oam- 
meyer at day-break, because this was the time of high- 
water. 

In pursuance of Cammeyer’s plan, the Good Hope, flying 
the Confederate flag, was now hoyering off the mouth of 
the coye. Her draught of water was thirteen feet — not 
deep enough to endanger her touching bottom. She might 
haye steamed up to where the Coromandel lay, except that 
in so narrow an estuary she could not have turned round 
to go back. 

Following the first boat came three others, all wielding 
lusty oars to tug the Coromandel to the cove’s mouth, 
where she was to be put in tow of the steamer. 

One of these boats straightway slipped the chain-cable by 
which the Coromandel was anchored. Another detached the 
hawsers which guyed the great hulk to the shore. The 
third cut off the ferry-basket. 

The stratagem for the capture, backed as it was by a 
force of seventy men in the boats, together with a co-oper- 
ating man-of-war in the offing, was about to prove a 
success. 

Capt. Chantilly turned to Lane, and with a haughty 
sneer, remarked, 

“ I have met you before, sir, and know you for a coward. 
Gentlemen ” — (turning to the armed marines), “ this cap- 
tain of yours commanded this ship seventeen years ago. 
He abandoned her in a storm, leaving on board of her one 
man and two women. These exiles have drifted about the 
sea on this same hulk almost ever since. They are alive 
to-day — in this year 1864 — against this wretch’s sworn 
oath that he saw them sink in 1847 ! He was a coward 
then, he is a coward now. See, he has drawn his knife on 
a feeble old dog — a dog that has been the playmate of this 


416 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


young woman ever since she was a child. Sir ” — (turning 
directly to Lane), “ there is not in all your body a drop 
of blood as brave as this which you have spilt from a 
dog ! ” 

Capt. Scaw, on recognizing Lane, was so choked with 
rage that he could not speak, except to roar forth a few 
detonating imprecations that went echoing over the island 
like discharges of artillery. 

Lucy Wilmerding had started for the deck, but arrested 
her steps midway on the cabin-stairs, not venturing to go 
further, and stood shuddering with an ominous sense of 
impending woe. 

Capt. Chantilly, who saw the strategic perfection of the 
scheme, now bethought him that the enterprise could not 
have been planned without an intimate knowledge of the 
situation ; furthermore, that this knowledge could not have 
been obtained by an ordinary reconnoissance from a distance; 
wherefore he leaped to the conclusion that Lane must have 
had an accomplice on the shore ; in other words, that Cam- 
meyer was in the plot. 

“ Where, sir, is Lieut. Cammeyer?” asked Capt. Chan- 
tilly, turning upon Lane with a fierce tone of peremptory 
inquiry. 

“ He is on my ship, sir, a captive — where I hope to see 
you join him in captivity.” 

Lucy Wilmerding overheard this intelligence concerning 
Cammeyer’s misfortune, and immediately ascended to the 
deck. 

“ Sir,” replied Chantilly, “you dare not touch a hair of 
my head — nor of any head in this party. We are in 
neutral waters, and you know it. Leave — I command you! 
— go ! Now, gentlemen ” — (turning again to the marines), 
“ this cowardly chief of yours, by leading you into maraud- 
ing on neutral territory, renders each one of you liable to 
hang on an English gibbet. This peaceable man,” pointing 


SURPRISE. 


417 


to Rodney, “is now a resident on the soil of Great Britain, 
and claims the protection of her flag.” 

To which Lane haughtily replied, 

“ And I claim my ship. This ship is mine. She was 
mine seventeen years ago — she was mine when I lost her 
— she is mine now that I have found her — and being 
mine, I shall take her though the devil himself should say 
nay.” 

“ You perjured liar,” cried old Scaw, who was now suffi- 
ciently calmed to speak, “you claim this ship ? — you , who 
took a hoath that you saw her sink ? — you a findin’ of your 
lost wessel ? Demmit, sir, the wessel what you lost went 
to the bottom o’ the sea — you swore to that same in a 
haffidavy — and demmit, sir, hif you want that wessel, my 
hadwice to you his to go straight to the bottom to find 
her.” 

Lucy Wilmerding, who was trembling with distress in 
contemplating Cammeyer as a prisoner, never suspected 
his treason, but supposed him to be an honorable captive. 

This sudden calamity to a man whose fortunes, whether 
for good or ill, were once the chief object of Lucy’s inter- 
est, woke within her a desire to help him in his extremity. 

“But,” thought she, “what can I do without exposing 
the fact that I have known him ? ” 

She resolved to wait till the situation should develop a 
Kgood opportunity by which she could render good for evil 
to the man who had stabbed her heart and slain its peace. 

“How came my officer on your ship ?” said Capt. Chan- 
tilly, arrogantly ; for although the captain of the Tamaqua 
was now practically a prisoner on the Coromandel, yet he 
still ruled the scene by the force of his proud spirit. 

“Sir,” replied Lane, “it took nothing but Lieut. Cam- 
meyer’s own free will to bring him to me, but it will take 
mine to let him go again.” 

“ Sir,” responded Chantilly, “I call your attention once 


418 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


more to the fact that you are in neutral waters — a fact 
which includes the case both of Cammeyer and the Coro- 
mandel. 

“ Sir,” retorted Lane, “you may go further and include 
yourself. You are in neutral waters, as you say : — I grant 
it. So I will give you ten minutes to go ashore — yourself 
and party. But if you remain voluntarily on this ship till 
after I have towed her beyond the neutrality line, I shall 
then seize you as a prisoner-of-war, and hold you as capt- 
ured on the high seas. Will you go ashore or stay aboard 
— which ? But there is one of our company who must go, 
even if all the rest stay.” 

“ Who ? ” interposed Dr. Yail. 

“ Your daughter, sir.” 

Dr. Yail, construing this remark as a brutal threat against 
Barbara, was about to spring once again at Lane’s throat, 
but the rebel pointed with a smile, first to his men behind 
him, then to the boats in the stream, and finally to the 
steamer just ahead. 

“Rodney Yail,” said he, “it will be a useless waste of 
your life, to attempt mine.” 

“I would give my two eyes,” retorted Dr. Yail, “and 
enter willingly blind into a world that I long to see, in ex- 
change for a loaded pistol at this moment, to shoot you 
dead 1 ” \ 

The Coromandel by this time had been drawn almost to 
the mouth of the basin, and would soon be past any con- 
venient spot for landing her passengers. 

“ Do you decide to go or stay ? ” asked Lane peremptorily 
of Capt. Chantilly. 

A hurried consultation was privately held by Yail, 
Chantilly, and Scarborough. 

“ Oliver, my dear friend,” said Rodney earnestly, “ you 
must go ashore to be picked up by Philip — otherwise you 
will be a prisoner.” 


SURPRISE. 


419 


“Ho,” replied Oliver, “my chance of being picked np 
by Philip will come sooner if I stay on the Coromandel 
than on the island. By heaven, if Philip does not yet 
prove a player in this game he is not his father’s son. Did 
he not write that he was skirting the coast ? Philip is in 
the neighborhood — we have his own word for it. I shall 
stay by the ship.” 

This decision (without the reason) was announced to 
Lane ; after which the Coromandel, having reached the 
open sea, was hitched by a hawser to the Good Hope. 

“ Boys,” exclaimed Lane, speaking to his marines, “ re- 
tire into the boat and wait for me there.” 

As the marines were clambering down the Coromandel’s 
sides. Dr. Vail turned to Lane and said contemptuously, 

“ Capt. Lane, the last time your men — and you — had 
occasion to quit the Coromandel, you were not the last to 
go ; I think John Blaisdell could testify to this fact.” 

This cutting allusion to Lane’s cowardice during the 
conflagration elicited from him no direct reply; but he 
curled his lips scornfully, and said, 

“ Call up your daughter, sir, who has fled into the cabin — 
hid her come back, to go with me at once — I am in haste.” 

“By heaven, sir,” replied her father, “my daughter 
shall not stir from this ship.” 

Barbara at that very moment returned to the deck ; and 
Lane, smiling at her with an affected gallantry, remarked, 
“ My fair lady, I have your lover on hoard my ship— in 
irons ; would it not be gracious in you to share his chains ? 
Will you not he glad to go ? ” 

Barbara, who had heard none of the previous allusions 
to Lieut. Cammeyer as a prisoner on the Good Hope, 
uttered a piercing cry at this announcement concerning 
her lover — supposing Lane to be speaking of Philip. 

“ 0 God ! ” she exclaimed, stunned and staggered by the 
intelligence. “ Is he indeed a prisoner on your ship ? ” 


420 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Yes/’ replied Lane, “ and he has sent me to fetch you 
to him, to solace his captivity. Will you accompany 
me?” 

“Yes, yes!” answered Barbara, — “let me fly at 
once.” 

“ I thought so,” replied Capt. Lane, turning to her 
father with a sneer. “ What fond darlings these women 
are ! ” 

Capt. Lane’s exulting announcement that he had made 
a prisoner of Barbara’s lover deceived not only Barbara 
herself but all the Coroman del’s bewildered company — 
smiting their astonished minds with the sudden and awful 
conviction that Cammeyer, Philip, and the Tamaqua were 
each and all in the hands of the foe. 

“ Great God, my lost ship ! ” muttered Capt. Chantilly 
— agonized at the foregone conclusion into which he had 
erroneously fallen. 

At this critical moment, the mutual misunderstandings 
of all parties were so many that they may be thus cata- 
logued : 

First, Lucy Wilmer ding, who had accompanied Barbara 
to the deck, had all along been mistaken by Lane for 
Barbara’s mother. 

So, too. Lane never suspected that Barbara, whom he 
saw in beautiful agony for her imperilled lover, was not 
thinking of Anthony Cammeyer but of Philip Chantilly. 
So, too, Barbara little dreamed that Lane was inviting 
her to join a man whom she could more easily loathe than 
love. So, too, Lucy, who had heard that Cammeyer was a 
prisoner on the Good Hope, supposed now that Philip was 
there too. So, too (chief blunder of all), Capt. Chantilly, 
Dr. Vail, and Scarborough all thought that Cammeyer had 
delivered the Tamaqua and Philip to the foe. 

Half the events in history (and more than half in ro- 
mance) turn on similar accidents and mischances. 


SURPRISE. 


421 


“ Are you ready ? ” asked Lane, speaking gently to Bar- 
bara, whom he now looked upon as his chief ally. 

“ Yes, — no ; let me say good-bye to my mother first ; ” 
and she tripped down into the cabin and back again — 
eager now to go — kissing her father — and rushing up to 
do the same to Lucy. 

“ No,” said Lucy, “ no farewell to me — I shall go with 
you — do not say nay — I insist— let me have my will.” 

Capt. Lane, still supposing that Miss Wilmerding was 
Mrs. Vail, not only consented to her going, but was full 
of glee at haying both the daughter and her mother as 
hostages — probably as accomplices. 

The gunboat was now under full headway, towing her 
moss-clad prize out to sea, eastward, direct for Barbados. 

Barbara and Lucy were taken on board. 

Capt. Lane, in leading the ladies into his cabin, cast his 
eyes on a little photograph of Sir Bichard Wilkinson, and 
inwardly chuckled at the reception which he expected to 
enjoy from his old patron, the new governor of Barbados. 

“ The baronet,” thought he, “ will find that he did not 
spend forty thousand pounds on the Good Hope in vain — 
he will get his money back again and more besides.” 

The two ladies clung to each other, fearing a fate that 
seemed all the more portentous because it was unknown. 
But their fears were not for themselves. Barbara feared 
for Philip — Lucy for Cammeyer. Each kept her own 
anxiety a heart’s secret from the other : which is the habit 
of deep-hearted women. 

“ I am sure,” said Lane, addressing Barbara with marked 
courtesy, “ quite sure that you cannot be offended, even 
with a rude sailor like me, for conducting you to the man 
of your heart ; and I can only regret that so fine a gallant 
is not the man of your father’s heart also. But, begging 
your pardon, madam” — (bowing to Lucy), “ the young 
lady is now free to choose for herself.” 


422 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ I do not understand you,” replied Barbara, in bewil- 
derment. 

“ My pretty miss, you have given a certain gentleman a 
promise to make him the happiest of men, but your father 
is an obstacle to the match.” 

“ 0, this is false ! ” cried Barbara. 

“ Do you then accuse your lover of falsehood ?” 

“ I beg you,” said Barbara, eagerly, “ take me to Lieut. 
Chantilly at once.” 

“To Lieut. Chantilly ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ I cannot take you to Lieut. Chantilly,” said he. 

“ Why not ? ” 

“Because I do not know where that rover is.” 

“ But you told me he was on this ship — and in irons.” 

“No.” 

“You did, sir ! — I call heaven to witness that you 
did ! ” 

“No,” replied Lane, struck with Barbara’s beauty, 
which seemed to increase with her distress ; “ I said I 
would lead you to your lover — but he is not Philip Chan- 
tilly — he is Lieut. Cammeyer.” 

At this remark Lucy Wilmerding started as if stung by 
a serpent. 

“I will call Lieut. Cammeyer at once,” said Lane. 
“ Miss Vail, you will not find him loaded with very heavy 
chains ; they are not of actual iron — and they shall be al- 
together silken, if you so decree. He is at his ease, en- 
joying his freedom — and I presume is expecting your 
approach with the proper palpitation of a true lover’s 
heart.” 

Lucy, who had hitherto remained standing, now sank 
into a chair. She drew her veil over her face. A human 
soul, when it is in agony, finds another agony in the dread 
of exposing its writhings to human eyes. 


SURPRISE. 


423 


“ Lieut. Cammeyer has spoken falsely,” said Barbara. 
“ He is not my lover, nor am I his.” 

“ But,” interposed Lane, “he explicitly told me of his 
offer to you of marriage — of your willing acceptance — and 
of your father and the Chantillys as obstacles.” 

Every successive word of this disclosure concerning 
Cammeyer’s attempt to marry Barbara, pierced the veil of 
Lucy Wilmerding like the seven daggers that rent Caesar’s 
mantle. 

“Good sir,” said Barbara, with indignation, “Lieut. 
Cammeyer did propose marriage to me, but I was the ob- 
stacle, not my father, nor any other person.” 

“ Has Cammeyer then dared to deceive me ? ” asked 
Lane, biting his lips. 

“If he has told you this,” replied Barbara, “or any- 
thing like it, he has deceived you most wickedly.” 

“ You do not, then, wish to marry him ?” 

“ I do not.” 

“ Have you not given him your word ?” 

“I have not.” 

“ Do you reject his offer ? ” 

“ I spurn it.” 

“ Do you not love this man ? ” 

“ I disdain him.” 

Barbara’s beautiful eyes were now flashing uncommon 
fires ; while the veil that covered Lucy Wilmerding’s pale 
face was hiding a whiteness as of death itself. 

“The devil ! ” exclaimed Lane, gnawing his nether lip. 
“If this man has been playing a trick on you , my lady, he 
may be playing one on me. Tell me. Miss Vail, is Cam- 
meyer a villain ? ” 

“ I have never dwelt among villains,” responded Bar- 
bara, “ and I know not in what villainy consists.” 

Capt. Lane summoned a midshipman, and said haugh- 
tily. 


4M 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Bring me Lient. Cammeyer.” 

After the midshipman departed, Lane turned to Bar- 
bara and exclaimed sharply, 

“ You shall meet this Yankee renegade face to face in 
my presence. There is a falsehood, between him and you. 
I shall determine for myself which one of you has told 
it.” 

“ Shall I retire ?” asked Lucy, who rose as if to go, and 
who gladly would have gone : for she now felt an inten- 
sified dread of meeting the basest man of all the world. 

“ 0 no, I beg you to stay,” urged Barbara, imploringly. 

Cammeyer then entered the room, and noticing that 
Barbara was accompanied by a veiled lady, took for 
granted (as Lane had done*) that this companion was her 
mother. 

The cool strategist first bowed deferentially to the sup- 
posed mother, and then, turning to the daughter, was 
about to kiss her hand, when Barbara drew it back and 
fiercely exclaimed, 

“ I forbid you, sir, to touch me — and I appeal to Capt. 
Lane for protection.” • 

This remark not only solved Lane’s doubt, but touched 
his pride. 

“ The girl speaks the truth,” thought he, “and the 
man is a knave.” 

Capt. Lane’s sympathy quickly welled up toward the 
angry young beauty. 

“ Miss Vail,” remarked Cammeyer, with admirable 
composure, “I desire to see you a few moments alone.” 

“ I decline to be seen.” 

“ But I have a word for your private ear.” 

“ Sir, I refuse to listen to it.” 

“ But it is for your interest and safety.” 

“ I disdain, sir, to receive any proposition that you may 
make.” 


SURPRISE. 


425 


“ Miss Vail, I am anxious for your happiness.” 

“Then, sir, leave me instantly.” 

“Miss Barbara, this is unexpected.” 

“ I beg you, captain,” pleaded Barbara, turning to Lane, 
“ terminate for me this interview at once.” 

“ It shall he as you wish,” responded Lane, who by this 
time was wholly won to Barbara’s side. 

“I have a few words then,” remarked Cammeyer, with 
chilly blandness, “ to address to this lady ” — (pointing to 
Lucy, still supposing her to be Barbara's mother), “I 
prefer to speak with her in private — that is, with your 
kind permission, captain — and with the lady’s own.” 

Cammeyer, little dreaming in whose presence he stood, 
was then left alone with a woman whom he had deserted 
thirteen years before — and by whom he had ever since 
been despised, pitied, and loved. 

“ Madam,” said he, walking up and down the little 
cabin, “I did myself the honor to inform you promptly 
of my proposal of marriage to your daughter, and of your 
daughter’s virtual acceptance. You received this intelli- 
gence- with a kindness to which I desire once again to 
appeal. May I speak further ? ” 

The veiled lady bowed her assent. 

Lieut. Cammeyer had previously come to the conclusion 
that the vague rumor of his ill-treatment of Lucy Wilmer- 
ding had been the pricking spur to Barbara’s indignation. 
But he was quite sure that neither the Vails nor the Chan- 
tillys had any accurate knowledge of this shadowy event 
in his past life. He therefore resolved upon a bold and 
wicked fabrication concerning Lucy Wilmerding, as follows: 

“Mrs. Vail,” said he, with an air of solemnity, “before 
I speak to you again of your daughter, I must first refer to 
a lamented being whom you once loved almost as a daughter. 
You will readily imagine that the name which I am about 
to mention is that of Lucy Wilmerding. I was once en- 


426 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


gaged to Miss Wilmerding, but before we could be married, 
she died ; leaving me to mourn my irreparable loss. 
Time, madam, which is said to cure grief, long proved 
impotent to cure mine. Recently, however (let me confess 
it), Miss Barbara revived, and I may say re-hallowed, the 
memory of my lost Lucy — our lost Lucy. If you think 
this to be a memory which I have rightly cherished — then, 
madam, pray permit it to inspire in me a desire that your 
daughter shall accept the same place in my heart which 
Lucy held. I have hesitated to make this appeal in this 
form until now, because I have not heretofore had the 
courage to communicate to you so mournful a piece of in- 
telligence as Miss Lucy’s death : — a death which, my dear 
madam, you will now mourn for the first time, but which 
I have never ceased to lament since the day when I stood 
by her new-made grave.” 

During these remarks, Lucy Wilmerding sat trembling 
so visibly that her shudderings ran like ripples up and down 
her veil. Alternate heats and chills shot through her 
flesh. Tears started toward her eyes, but dried on the 
way thither, and left her eyelids stung with fever. Her 
pulse rose high and then suddenly stopped, as if her heart 
were in doubt whether to go on with life any longer, or to 
put a merciful end to it at once. 

The slow utterance of Cammeyer’s cunningly devised 
speech — which he pronounced hesitatingly — afforded Lucy, 
before its conclusion, an opportunity to rally from the hor- 
rible and sickening surprise with which the base man’s 
falsehood and sacrilege overwhelmed her. 

Hardly had the last words of his audacious utterance 
escaped his slow and monotonous lips, than she swiftly 
rose, threw up her veil, and looked him in the face. 

“ Lucette ! ” he exclaimed — tottering backward — throw- 
ing up his arms — leaning against the wall — and gasping 
for breath/ 


SURPRISE. 


427 


(Lucette was the familiar name by which he had been 
wont to call her in the days of their youth. ) 

Neither they who commit wrong, nor they who suffer it, 
can prevent it from emblazoning its tell-tale revelation on 
their faces ; and in moments of high passion or startling 
surprise, these life-records, in spite of all efforts at conceal- 
ment, discover themselves at a glance — divulging ghastly 
inscriptions of crime or grief. 

Lucy Wilmerding looked ten years older in a moment, 
and showed the internal conflict that comes of anguish 
seeking to hide itself under pride. 

The base trickster, whose trick was so unexpectedly 
frustrated and exposed, surveyed Lucy from head to foot 
— scowled at her like a madman — clenched his right hand 
— sprang toward her where she stood — and was about to 
fell her to the earth — but her calm, undaunted, and de- 
fiant look paralyzed his dastardly arm. 

“ Wretch ! ” she exclaimed with mingled pride, scorn, 
and wrath ; — and she gazed at him as if she too, in turn, 
could become a destroyer — not by a lifted hand, but by a 
withering glance. “ Am I dead ? 99 she asked, — advancing 
purposely near him, to show how little a brave woman 
needs to fear a cowardly man’s threats. “ Yes, Anthony, 
I am dead indeed — slain you know by whom ; — you are 
right in calling me dead. But you are wrong in announc- 
ing me in my grave. Every death is entitled to its burial. 
You did but half your work years ago — do the rest now. 
Strike hard enough to lay me under ground — Strike, I 
say \" 

Cammeyer was petrified. The blow which is welcomed 
hurts little. The blow which Lucy outbraved remained 
undealt. She stood the temporary conqueror. 

“ Have you come to taunt me ? 99 cried Cammeyer, cring- 
ing before her. “ Did you cloak yourself like an assassin 
that you might steal upon me unbeknown ? Is revenge 


428 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


so sweet to your sex that a woman whom a man has 
spurned will follow him round the world — just to see him 
spurned by another woman in return ? ” 

“Be thankful/’ she said haughtily, “that I am not 
Barbara’s mother — to reproach you from the depths of a 
mother’s soul for the guile and deceit with which you 
would ensnare her innocent child. Would you force her to 
a marriage with you against her will — her whole heart 
pledged to another ? Is not one blighted life sufficient 
to fill the measure of your mischief ? Is not one broken- 
heart enough for you to answer for at the Judgment 
Day ?” 

Cammeyer’s face was now liyid — his eyes wild — his fin- 
gers moving as if playing on vibrating strings — and his 
whole aspect that of a man who, though conquered before, 
was dangerous now. 

But he was soon overpowered by his own excitement. 
He sank back in a chair, and gazed down at the floor with 
a vacant look, as if unconscious of his visitor’s presence, — 
his countenance lapsing into an expression of pitiful abject- 
ness and woe. 

“ 0 God ! ” thought Lucy, “ what have I said ? I have 
forgotten my vows — I have spoken in anger — I have not 
remembered mercy. Forgive me. Mother Mary in heaven ! ” 

Lucy’s natural resentment now passed under the awful 
condemnation of Agatha’s religious faith. Lucy stood 
appalled by the ringing of her too violent words in Aga- 
tha’s calm ears. Lucy’s haughty anger was conquered by 
Agatha’s soft humility. Lucy’s indignant self-assertion 
was melted into Agatha’s self-abnegation. 

“ Tell me,” cried Cammeyer, who leaped up from his 
chair, and went raving around the cabin, “what damnable 
errand brings you here to torment me before my time — 
confess, or I will sear your eyeballs and tear out your 
heart.” 


SURPRISE. 


429 


Throughout this strange interview, Cammeyer’s demo- 
niac behavior had been so wholly unlike the cold and re- 
served manner of the man whom, in earlier years, Lucy 
had looked upon as a very statue of self-poise *and stony 
repose, that her astonishment at the spectacle was equaled 
only by her grief in beholding it. 

“Was it you,” he continued, quivering with rage, 
“ who put Lane on my track ? Was it you who sent the 
Good Hope to the island, to cheat me in the fog ? Was it 
you who spread this rebel’s snare for my feet ? ” 

Once again Cammeyer leaped toward Lucy as if to wreak 
a powerful vengeance on her by one final act of malice. 

“Ho, Anthony,” said Lucy mildly, “I am a woman— 
and, being such, my pride and wrongs would have forbidden 
me to seek your j^resencc save at the call of your misfortune. 
But I heard you were a prisoner. Oapt. Lane, who holds 
you, was once in my father’s service, and commanded one 
of our ships. My father was lenient to him for a breach of 
trust. This fact, I thought, would give me a ground of 
interceding with Oapt. Lane in your behalf. It was this 
motive — this only — that prompted me to come. Otherwise, 
Anthony, we might never have met again in this world.” 

In a white rage, Cammeyer, as if now meditating a 
simultaneous vengeance on both Lucy and Barbara, ex- 
claimed — 

“I could strangle you both, and laugh in doing it!” 
And he chuckled as if he were already in a delicious act of 
murder. “Accursed be your name ! — accursed be liers! 
— accursed be all your sex ! ” 

“Men’s curses,” said Lucy, — her voice softening into a 
pitying tone, “ have no lodgment in God’s heart ; other- 
wise on you , Anthony, the wrath of heaven would have 
fallen long ago — for my father cursed you on his death-bed. 
But fear not — for I live to forgive you ; which I do freely, 
both for all the past, and for to-day.” 


430 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Lucy was about to speak further, but a horrible impre- 
cation suddenly burst from Cammeyer’s lips, smiting the 
tender and charitable woman as a simoom smites a flower- 
stalk. 

“ May God, whom this wretched man blasphemes,” sighed 
Lucy, “ pity and pardon his frenzied mind.” 

Lucy, feeling that her continued presence would only 
excite Cammeyer to renewed oaths and fury, hastily re- 
tired, saying the simple words — 

“Anthony, farewell.” 

The close student of human nature will hardly need to 
be reminded, in reviewing Cammeyer’s apparently unchar- 
acteristic behavior, that the chief part which Lucy played 
in this drama of his incipient madness was merely to be the 
mirror in which this defeated villain saw himself revealed 
in such hideous lineaments that he was now unpoised at 
the self-contemplation. 

As for Lucy’s motive in visiting her false lover in his 
adversity, whom for thirteen years she had not sought in 
his prosperity, — she had stated it to him honestly ; and in 
acting on the motive which she had thus stated, she simply 
did as many another injured woman has done before, and will 
do again ; for be it known, to the honor of all womankind, 
that no man who has never been in sorrow and friendless- 
ness — no man who has never become his own worst enemy 
— no man who has not, in some way, suffered the chief 
agonies of human life — can possibly know the almost divine 
omnipotence of woman’s sympathy, loyalty, and love. 

Lucy Wilmerding was one of a type of women who, 
though not multitudinous in the world, are yet neither few 
nor far between — women who love once, and once only — 
women who, having once loved, and found their love 
unrequited or disappointed, have no recourse but to love 
still — giving forth to the same false lover the same true 
love. 


SURPRISE. 


431 


Among the high and holy principles to which Lucy had 
devoted her heart-broken years, and which had led her into 
a religious life, was a saying spoken of Him who spake as 
never man spake : 

“ Having loved His own. He loved them unto the end.” 

No sooner had Lucy retired from the frenzied man’s 
presence, than he drew a pistol — leaped toward the door 
which she had just closed behind her — put his hand on the 
knob as if about to pursue and kill her — suddenly paused 
— changed his mind — cocked the pistol — thrust the barrel 
into his right ear — and pulled the trigger. 

The weapon missed fire. 

This accident saved the raving man from self-destruction, 
for at the next moment his courage failed him ; he trembled 
at his act — cold sweat burst out on his brow — he put his 
small weapon back into his pocket — he gasped for breath at 
the horrible thought of having attempted suicide — he thrust 
both his hands into his hair — and finally he flung him- 
self to the floor. 

“My dear Lucy,” asked Barbara, “what did Lieut. 
Cammever say to you ? ” 

“ My dear Barbara,” replied Lucy, “he mistook me for 
your mother, and begged me to plead with you in his be- 
half.” 

“Madam,” inquired Lane, surprised, “are you not, 
then, this young lady’s mother ? ” 

“No,” said Lucy, “I am the daughter of Lawrence 
Wilmerding — you knew my father, I believe.” 

Capt. Lane staggered as if struck by a handspike ! 

All his past career seemed again rushing upon him, to 
bring him to judgment. 

Two great clouds had shadowed Oapt. Lane’s name for 
many years \ — one a breach of commercial trust, for which 
he would have suffered a harsh sentence by a court, save for 
the clemency of Lawrence Wilmerding ; and the other, the 


432 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


still harsher sentence of public opinion for deserting the 
Coromandel. Both these clouds now seemed rising afresh 
into the sky, ready to smite Lane with their thunder-bolts 
once more. 

He instantly determined to send the two ladies back to 
their own ship. 

To make this act seem all the more gracious, and his 
disposition all the more honorable, he resolved to send 
back Robson and Carter also ; for as these two men had 
come on board his ship while she lay in neutral waters, 
he felt apprehensive that their forced detention, which 
could do him little good, might possibly do him great 
harm. 

Capt. Lane thus shrewdly sought to put not only the two 
women and the two men, but all the Vail family and both 
the Chantillys beside, under an obligation to credit him 
with fair dealing. 

The Tamaqua’s boat, which had been captured with Cam- 
meyer, was now got ready ; Robson and Carter were ordered 
into it ; and the two ladies were gently handed down by 
Capt. Lane, who said to Barbara, 

“Miss Vail, I neglected while on the Coromandel to 
congratulate your father on his rescue : please convey to 
him my good wishes, and say that on our arriving in Barba- 
dos we shall be favored with the presence of Sir Richard 
Wilkinson, the new governor, who in former days was 
interested in your father’s anticipated labors in Cape Town. 
Ladies, I hope we shall arrive before nightfall — until then, 
good day.” 

The rebel captain si;ood with lifted cap while Robson and 
Carter dexterously manoeuvred the little boat back from 
the Good Hope to the Coromandel. 

“Welcome ! my daughter !” exclaimed Dr. Vail, em- 
bracing her fondly. 

“Welcome ! my son !” joyfully cried Capt. Chantilly, 


SURPRISE. 


433 


pointing to Philip’s ship, which was just emerging from 
behind one of the northerly Grenadines. 

At the next moment the Tamaqua was in full sight about 
four miles off, bearing the American flag as usual, and 
showing no signs of captivity, but presenting a warlike 
front, ominous of battle and blood. 


4 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


BATTLE, 


T sight of the Tamaqua confronting the Good Hope, 



-L-L the agitation on the Coromandel was greater than on 
either of the war-ships, and was full both of joy and fear. 

“ Look yonder ! ” exclaimed Rodney. “ What are they 
doing on the Good Hope ?” 

“They are casting off the hawser,” replied Oliver. 
“ Lane is setting the Coromandel adrift. There ! — the 
line is gone ! We are free ! He means either to fight or run : 
in either case he cannot drag a dead- weight behind him.” 

“ Merciful heaven ! ” exclaimed Barbara, “ is there to he 
a battle ? What if Philip should he slain ? ” 

The distressed girl burst into tears. 

“Lane fight ?” cried Scaw. “No, demmit, no — that 
rogue will run. There’s no fight in ’im.” 

But Scarborough was wrong ; for the Good Hope now 
sped straight toward the Tamaqua. 

Capt. Chantilly’s practiced eye saw that the rebel gun- 
boat meant to give a challenge. 

It was Oliver’s habit, when danger came, to be calm and 
reticent. A singular nonchalance now marked his intrepid 
spirit. He put a willow-chair on the top of the binnacle 
— sat in it with crossed legs — and thrummed his larboard 
knee with his starboard fingers. 

“Now we shall see,” he said to Rodney, “ what kind o’ 
timber the boy is built of.” 


434 


BATTLE. 


435 


The battle was already raging in Barbara’s breast. 

“ 0 my dear father,” she cried, “ when you and I found 
the little boat Good Hope — and when I planted vines and 
flowers about it — who would have thought it an enemy in 
disguise ?” 

The Good Hope was an English steam-propeller of 970 
tons ; built at the Liverpool dockyards ; armed with Eng- 
lish guns of the latest rifled-bores ; manned by an English 
crew who had been trained on her Majesty’s gunnery-ship 
Saracen ; paid for with the money of an English baronet 
at Cape Town ; and was one of not a few light, agile, and 
formidable cruisers which a certain class of Englishmen — 
against the better genius of their country — supplied to a 
rebellion in the interest of human slavery in the United 
States. 

Sir Bichard Wilkinson, in giving this evil-minded gun- 
boat a charitable name, took pains to equip her with an 
armament such as would blast human charity with a fiery 
breath. 

From all the English foundries, he chose their best metal 
— here one gun, there another. 

Her armament, thus picked for perfection, consisted of 
eight guns in all ; among which was a rifled 110-pounder, 

' cast after the only pattern that had then proved success- 
ful with guns of this calibre in the British service ; also a 
68-pounder of that famous Blakely mould, whose thun- 
derous praise had been many times self-spoken in the royal 
navy ; together with a formidable battery of what were 
known as 32-pounders of 57 hundredweight. 

The Tamaqua was a steam-propeller, a trifle smaller than 
the Good Hope, — her tonnage being, instead of 970, only 
890 ; carrying, not eight guns, but seven ; and accomplish- 
ing, when under a full head of steam, a maximum speed 
of Hi or 12 knots an hour, while the Good Hope had 
repeatedly attained 13. 


436 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


The Tamaqua was an American yessel throughout — in 
model, in metal, and in men. 

Her armament included four broadside 32-pounders, one 
28-pound rifle-bore, and two 11-inch thunderers carrying 
each a projectile of 160 pounds. 

The two armaments, though somewhat differently dis- 
tributed, showed no great disparity in the total weight of 
metal which each could fling at a foe. 

The two steamers, though small, and looking at a dis- 
tance more like steam-yachts or revenue-cutters than war- 
waging spitfires, were nevertheless rendered by their new 
style of armament far more formidable than the stateliest 
line-of-battle ships of the obsolete type of 74 lighter- 
weighted guns. 

The Good Hope would ordinarily have been the swifter 
sailer of the two — able to creep ahead of the Tamaqua by 
at least a mile an hour. But the rebel ship had just been 
coaling at St. Vincent, and was now full-freighted with 
300 tons of coal, that weighed her down in the water ; 
while the Tamaqua’s hollow coal-bunkers contained hardly 
more than 90 tons ; — an accidental circumstance which 
rendered her, for the time being, the superior in speed, 
and enabled Philip to surprise and astonish his rival — and 
particularly Cammeyer — by the agility of the Tamaqua’s 
manoeuvres. 

The Good Hope’s officers and crew numbered 142 men 
— augmented by the presence of Cammeyer, who was the 
most important man among them. The Tamaqua’s officers 
and men numbered 138 — now reduced by the absence of 
Capt. Chantilly, Lieut. Cammeyer, and the two seamen 
Robson and Carter — leaving Philip’s working force 134 
in all ; or eight men less than his enemy. 

Philip took a precaution which Lane neglected. This 
was to chain-coat his vessel amidships ; — in other words, 
to hang chain-cables up and down the Tamaqua’s sides 


BATTLE. 


437 


from the deck to the water, doubling and re-doubling 
the chains as many times as their length would permit, 
and “ stopping ” them fast — thus turning his wooden ship 
into an extemporized iron-clad. 

“Both ships,” said Scaw, “ are goin’ to giye us a wide 
berth.” 

From the moment the two warriors came in sight of 
each other, Philip steered eastward to the open sea. He 
bore in mind his father’s injunction against committing a 
hostile act in neutral waters. The prudent young man 
resolved that if a battle was to be fought, it should be 
fought beyond the legal league from land. 

The Tamaqua’s apparent flight drew the Good Hope to 
follow her at a bounding speed. 

“ They are going to sea,” said Capt. Chantilly, “ and 
we are going ashore.” 

The Coromandel, having been cast loose about two 
miles to windward of the little isle, was rapidly drifting 
back toward it — wafted by a slight wind and a strong cur- 
rent, both from the east. 

The old. ship, which had lost one anchor at sea, and had 
been robbed of another that morning in the cove, had only 
one remaining — a river-kedge, which would not have been 
a safe reliance in rough weather, but would serve well 
enough in the smooth sea on which the old hulk was now 
once more lazily floating as in the Calms of Capricorn. 

The kedge was at once lowered from the bow and al- 
lowed to hang at forty fathoms. 

By this expedient the Coromandel soon afterward an- 
chored herself off the breakers, just beyond their riot and 
roar, and lay awaiting the coming storm of shot and shell 
about to burst forth in the sunshiny distance. 

Meanwhile, on both gunboats, warlike preparations 
were in swift progress — plainly visible to Capt. Chantilly 
through his glass. 


438 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Can you see Philip ? ” asked Barbara. 

“ Ah,” replied the young man’s father, with a provoking 
levity, “ Philip is not one of those good boys in the maxim, 
who are to be seen, not heard ; he is to be heard, not seen.” 

“Let me look !” said Barbara, borrowing the glass. 

But her hands shook so violently that the Tamaqua 
danced a mad caper across the lens, and the whole ocean 
jumped up and down like a harlequin. 

“Now let me try,” said Lucy, who fixed a steady focus 
on the Good Hope. 

“ Did you see him ? ” asked Barbara. 

“No,” replied Lucy, quietly, with a tone of disappoint- 
ment on laying down the glass. 

“But,” said Barbara, “how could you expect to see 
him ? — you were looking at the wrong ship.” 

Lucy made no reply. 

Philip Chantilly walked calmly through the Tamaqua 
and spoke a few manly words to each group of men at 
their posts : — marines, gunners, engineers, firemen, coal- 
heavers, and powder-boys. 

He was everywhere saluted with a cheer ; for. of all the 
ship’s officers he was the best beloved. 

He pivoted his guns to the starboard, and gave orders 
to the gunners to aim the heavy ordnance just below the 
enemy’s water-line — reserving the lighter guns to sweep 
the enemy’s deck. 

He unshipped the bulwarks at the port-guns, making a 
wide space exempt from accidents otherwise possible by 
splinters. 

He hastily prepared the fore-hold for the accommodation 
of the wounded. 

He ordered the men to take off their jackets and fight 
in their shirt-sleeves. 

He put two assistant-engineers in charge of hot-water 
hose, to be used if the ship should catch fire. 


BATTLE. 


439 


He went to the men on the sick-list, and, without giving 
them any command, received from them their voluntary 
offer to return to their posts — there to render such service 
as each man might find himself able to perform. 

“Forsyth,” said Philip, turning to his young brother- 
officer who had served with him on the Fleetwing, “ let the 
marines fight the rifle-gun on the top-gallant forecastle ; 
put the acting-master’s-mate in command.” 

The two vessels were now six or seven miles from shore, 
still steaming eastward to the sea. 

“ Forsyth, how far away from us do you judge the Good 
Hope to be at this moment ? ” 

“ Two miles,” replied Forsyth. 

“ I should say a trifle less than that,” rejoined Philip, 
“and I mean to diminish the distance to a half-mile.” 

Whereupon Lieut. Chantilly suddenly wheeled his vessel 
round, and under a full head of steam made a bee-line 
toward the enemy as if to run him down. 

The Good Hope’s course continued unchanged. 

The two war-dogs were now rapidly approaching each 
other, but neither had yet opened his mouth to bark. 

When the narrowing interval was abridged to a mile, the 
Good Hope, determining now to bring her guns to bear, 
sheered so as to present her starboard battery — then slowed 
her engines so as not to pass the Tamaqua too quickly — and 
suddenly delivered her full broadside ; the shot cutting 
Philip’s rigging as if a dozen pairs of scissors had clipped 
here a ratlin and there a stay. 

“ Forsyth,” said Philip, who stood taking an observation 
through a spy-glass, “ those guns must have been pointed 
at a range of two thousand yards. That is proof positive 
that the rascal wants to play this game at arm’s length, so 
as to leave room for running away, if discretion should 
be the better part of valor. Forsyth, hold back our fire 
till we are within half a mile — or less.” 


440 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


A second broadside came from the rebel cruiser ; and 
then a third ; the interval between them being about two- 
and-a-half minutes. 

“ That’s quick work,” said Philip, quietly. “ Now it’s 
our turn. Forsyth ! — caution — fire low ! ” 

The Tamaqua then bravely trembled under her own 
bellowing guns, and made the enemy stagger. 

The jar was felt even on the Coromandel. 

“ 0 Capt. Chantilly,” cried Barbara, agonizingly, “how 
can you sit here smiling while Philip is in such peril ? I 
shall go mad ! ” and she clasped her hands against hex 
temples. 

The Good Hope, having hitherto fired solid shot, now 
resorted to shell — some of the hollow missiles bursting 
against the chain-coated sides of the Tamaqua, driving the 
chain-links into the solid wood, but not extending the 
damage beyond this disfiguration. 

As Capt. Lane’s ship, notwithstanding the slowing of 
her engines, was still moving with considerable speed east- 
ward, and as the Tamaqua was steaming at nine or ten 
knots westward, it was evident that the two ships, if they 
continued in their present opposite courses, could remain 
only a few moments broadside to broadside, and would 
speedily be beyond each other’s fire. 

“ By the gods ! ” cried Capt. Chantilly gaily, varying 
his position in his chair by flinging his starboard leg over 
his larboard knee, “ just see how the boy is running round 
under the stern of the Good Hope to rake her fore and 
aft.” 

Capt. Lane, perceiving this danger, steered his vessel so 
as to keep his broadside still parallel with the other ship. 

The scene, as witnessed from the Coromandel, was pic- 
turesque and exciting. 

“Rodney,” said Oliver, “you once had a taste for the 
fine arts. Just look yonder — that’s a manoeuvre that 


BATTLE. 


441 


appeals to a cultivated taste. See those two ships chasing 
one another round and round like two kittens, each after 
the other’s tail.” 

Capt. Chantilly’s description of the manoeuvre was figu- 
rative but accurate. 

The Tamaqua’s persistent attempt to get across the 
enemy’s stern, and the Good Hope’s perpetual evasion of 
this stratagem, resulted in the two ships following each 
other in a circle — both steaming round a common centre 
— keeping about half a mile apart — and blasting each 
other with broadsides as fast as their sweaty and begrimed 
gunners could fulfil their fiery tasks. 

A singular spectacle now presented itself. 

In executing the circles, the two ships left their visible 
wakes not only in the water hut in the air ; for each 
vessel’s smoke rose above her in the form of a huge wreath 
or ring, — the fumes showing different colors, being the 
tints of different coals. 

When the firing became swift and close, the white and 
fleecy powder-smoke — which is unlike any other cloud that 
ever floated over the world — added its profuse festoons to 
the solemn drapery with which the battle was curtaining 
the sky. 

“Is war so beautiful ?” remarked Barbara, who now 
stood surveying the spectacle. “ But, 0 how horrible ! ” 

And the young maid’s heart made a cannonading against 
her breast, lending an inward thunder to the outward 
scene. 

The action consisted of successive broadsides, mainly of 
shells, delivered by the rotating ships at intervals of two 
or three minutes, for a space of three-quarters of an hour ; 
— during which time, hell seemed to have burst up through 
the sea, and the shining heaven to have beclouded itself in 
order to shield its holy eyes from gazing at the unholy 
scene. 


442 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Philip Chantilly was inspired to a superhuman energy 
and activity. He was omnipresent in his ship. Danger 
has a strange respect for those who defy it. Philip 
clothed himself with courage as with a crusader’s mail. 
He felt anew his old faith that Barbara was his guardian 
angel. 

The battle was hot and short. 

After the rotating ships had made five successive circles, 
the two combatants — though partially veiled from the 
Coromandel’s view by each other’s smoke — both bore evi- 
dence that they had been fighting a battle of giants. 

The Tamaqua had received through her starboard bul- 
warks a 68-pound Blakely shell, entering below the main 
rigging, exploding on the quarter-deck, and wounding 
three men at a pivot-gun. 

A solid shot had struck her sternpost early in the action, 
jamming the rudder so that the strength of four men was 
required at the wheel throughout the remainder of the 
fight. 

The top of her engine-room had been cut completely 
across by a flying fragment of a shell. 

The smoke-pipe showed a perforation through both sec- 
tions by a missile that exploded in passing through, mak- 
ing a ragged hole two feet in diameter, and carrying away 
three of the chain-guys. 

No spar had been shot down, yet the foretopmast back- 
stay had been snapped. 

Moreover, the loosely-furled foretopsail had been pierced 
by a solid ball transversely through its matted folds, sev- 
ering the ropes which bound it, so that the imprisoned 
sail was set free in a moment, falling down without the 
touch of a hand, and exhibiting five round holes made in 
one sheet of canvas by a single shot. 

The casualties to the crew were the wounding of three 
gunners and two firemen, the latter mortally. 


BATTLE. 


443 


In the midst of the fury, Lieut. Chantilly, while in the 
act of giving an order, was smitten suddenly to the deck. 
The men, as they beheld his fall, thought him. killed, and 
gave a general groan; but in a moment afterward he leaped 
to his feet. It was then noticed that two seamen, who 
had fallen with him, rose with him. They had all been 
blown down by the wind of a passing shell. 

This escape was instantly accepted by the crew as a 
token that their young leader’s good luck would impart 
itself to his ship and shipmates. 

From that moment, Philip’s hundred and thirty grim 
dragons, reeking and smirched, fought like good devils 
against bad. 

The Good Hope, during the same period, — that is, up to 
the time of accomplishing her fifth and final circuit,— had 
apparently (as surveyed from the Coromandel) received 
less injury than the Tamaqua ; for the rebel’s rigging 
remained unscathed, her bulwarks unsplintered, and her 
smoke-stack safe and sound. 

But a ship’s heart is not in her rigging ; it is in her hull. 
The Good Hope had been pierced through the hull to the 
heart. Philip’s order to aim at the enemy’s water-line 
had been mercilessly obeyed. Shot after shot, shell after 
shell, had gone slanting thither with fatal aim. 

Early in the fray a heavy ball went crashing through the 
Good Hope’s stern, breaking out a beam, which became 
immediately entangled in the propelling screw, threatening 
to stop the ship’s motive power, and to render her unman- 
ageable ; but in a few minutes the buoyant water, pressing 
up against the submerged beam, dislodged it from its mis- 
chievous place ; and the great flanges once more exerted 
their powerful fins. 

A shell had entered the Good Hope’s coal-bunkers, ex- 
ploding and filling her engine-room with litter. 

An 11-inch projectile had cut its way completely through 


444 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


her starboard side three feet above her water-line, followed 
immediately by another shell from the same gun, striking 
so nearly in the same place that the two fractures over- 
lapped each other, making one doubly-gaping wound. 

Her whale-boat, gig, and dingy had been knocked to 
pieces. 

The blade of her fan had been carried away. 

One of her water-tight compartments had been ripped 
open, and the fire-room flooded with water. 

The havoc to the Good Hope’s crew consisted of five • 
killed and nine wounded — a slightness of casualty due to 
the fact that the Tamaqua’s shots, having been aimed low 
at the hull, were mortal to the ship rather than to the men. 

Notwithstanding all this destruction, the first sign visible 
to the Coromandel that the rebel ship was suffering, was 
the carrying away of her steam-pipe, followed by the 
emission of clouds of steam that rose in the air to diversify 
still further the interwreathing garlands of coal-fumes and 
powder-smoke which crowned the two combatants with 
halos in the sky. 

A still more manifest sign of distress then appeared in 
the hoisting of the rebel’s sails, and her squaring away for 
the shore : — evidently hoping that with the light breeze to 
assist the feeble engines — whose fires the intruding water 
was rapidly quenching — she might yet creep so far away 
from the battle as to take refuge within the neutral league 
from land. 

Philip, perceiving this stratagem, steered off from his 
circle in a tangent shoreward — steamed ahead of the Good 
Hope — sheered directly across her path — and presented his 
broadside so as once more to rake her fore and aft. 

“ Beautiful ! beautiful, my lad,” said Capt. Chantilly 
quietly, still sitting cross-legged, and admiring the tactics 
— his heart burning within him. 

Before Philip could deliver his fire — which, from such a 


BATTLE. 


445 


position of advantage, must have gone through the enemy’s 
ship with a bloody horror — the Good Hope struck her flag ; 
and at the next moment all the guns on both sides of the 
combat came to a strange hush ; which, from its sudden- 
ness, seemed hardly less startling than the previous sound. 

In a few minutes the only cloud in the sky was the single 
uprolling leaden-colored coil of smoke from Philip’s chim- 
ney — ever fading, ever renewing — emitted upward as from 
Vulcan’s smithy or from Pluto’s fires. 

The din-bewildered ears of both crews soon became 
reconciled to the stillness — which was now like the silence 
with which men stand by a grave to witness a burial. 

It was indeed a deep grave that was about to open, and 
a stately burial that was about to take place. 

The Good Hope hove up in the wind — her white wall 
of canvas wrinkling like a curtain, and her headway 
checked to a dead pause. 

Her only remaining boat was then hastily lowered to 
bear to her conqueror the news that the stricken ship 
was fast settling and soon must sink. 

Philip guessed in advance the purport of this message, 
and prepared instantly for rescuing his enemy’s imperiled 
crew. 

Just as he was stepping into one of his relief -boats, he 
turned to his young colleague, who was stepping into an- 
other, and said with quiet emotion, 

“Forsyth, this is the chief trophy of war — to push your 
enemy into the jaws of death, and then to snatch him back 
from it.” 

The spectators on the Coromandel were at a fever-heat 
of eagerness. 

“ Is the battle done ? ” asked Barbara, who cojild not 
see why the Good Hope, with all her sails set, was not just 
as formidable as ever. 

“ God be thanked ! ” cried Capt. Chantilly, in a ringing 


446 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


voice. He leaped up from his chair, and gave way for the 
first time to his long-snppressed feeling. He seized first 
Dr. Vail and then old Scaw, embracing each in turn. 

“ Look, Rodney ! ” he exclaimed, pointing to the stag- 
gering ship. “ Look ! the bird has wings enough, but she 
cannot fly — she is going to plunge. Do you see ? ” 

“ She seems unmanageable ! ” observed Dr. Vail. 

“She has not many minutes to swim !” added Capt. 
Chantilly. 

“ Then, demmit,” cried old Scaw, swinging his hat, and 
tripping on what might be called the heavy fantastic toe, 
“ she’ll ’ave hall the more leisure to sink — and I ’ope Lane 
will sink with her, like Pharo’ in the Red ! I say, 
Holiver, let’s lend an ’and to save the demned coward from 
drownin’.” 

“ See ! ” exclaimed Oliver, “ the Good Hope is half way 
under water already — she seems to have no more boats left 
to lower — they must all have been knocked to pieces — the 
men are climbing into the rigging for refuge.” 

Capt. Chantilly instantly ordered Robson and Carter to 
get into their boat ; and he and Dr. Vail followed. 

“0 heaven ! 3 ’ cried Lucy, with a moan, “the ship is 
sinking ! ” 

The Good Hope’s masts and sails soon began to slant over 
slowly toward her wounded side. The vanquished ship was 
pitifully poised between life and death. Her agony was 
short. She gave a plunge backward, submerging her stern 
and lifting her bow in the air. Then, with a mad rush to 
her fate, she went down. The great ocean inurned her in 
the deepest of sepulchres. She was sailing a voyage to the 
bottom of the sea. 

“ 0 God ! ” cried Barbara, “the vessel is swallowed up !” 

The scene of this majestic disaster was about two miles 
from the Coromandel. 

The water at the spot where the Good Hope sank was 


BATTLE. 


447 


covered with struggling men, floating spars, splinters, and 
scattered fragments of the great wreck. 

Lucy was so overcome with the sight that she could no 
longer look at it. 

“My dear sister,” said she, “have you Capt. Chantilly’s 
glass in your hand ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Tell me, then — for I cannot see — the sunlight dazzles 
me blind — tell me if any of the men are saved.” 

Barbara, watching through the glass, reported to Lucy 
the situation, thus : 

“ Dear Lucy, Philip’s ship is sailing up close to the men 
in the water. His little boats are all lowered — one — two — 
three — four. He is in one of them. I can see him quite 
distinctly. He is now taking some drowning men into 
his boat — his sailors are dragging them in over the sides. 
Philip’s boat has picked up seven men — yes, eight, nine — 
and now another. And there’s another in the water — they 
can’t get him on board — he seems to be fighting his res- 
cuers. They have now drawn this rough man into the 
boat. 0 Lucy, it is Lieut. Cammeyer — I can see his 
face — it is he — and he refuses to be saved. There ! he has 
jumped back again into the sea — but Philip has caught 
him by the arm and is holding him fast. Captain Chan- 
tilly’s boat has just gone up to Philip’s help. Philip has 
saved Lieut. Cammeyer again, and is putting him into 
Capt. Chantilly’s boat. 0 Lucy, my father now has hold 
of a man in the water. He has lifted him into the boat. 
It looks like Capt. Lane — yes, I am sure it is he. There ! 
Lieut. Cammeyer is trying to leap overboard again — but 
the men are holding him — he cannot get away. 0 the 
traitor — he is so ashamed of his treachery that he wants 
to die ! 0 Lucy, Lucy, was there ever a man so base ? 0 

I wonder how many of the poor creatures will be lost ! 
All the boats seem loaded. Some of the men have 


448 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


gashes and look bloody. The boats will not hold all the 
men — many of the victims are still in the water — but they 
are clinging to the sides of the boats. 0 how strange is 
war ! — how very strange that men should be one moment 
trying to kill each other, and the next moment be saving 
the very men they have just tried to kill ! Philip’s boat is 
going back to the Tamaqua, and Oapt. Chantilly’s is com- 
ing this way — with Capt. Lane and Lieut. Cammeyer in 
it.” 

Lucy Wilmerding, at the announcement of Cammeyer’s 
approach, requested Scarborough to assist her into the 
cabin, which the old elephant did with ponderous cour- 
tesy. Barbara stood gazing at the Tamaqua. 

“My brave, my noble Philip !” she exclaimed, apos- 
trophizing that absent hero, “you wanted a victory, and you 
have won it. You came at first to capture a rebel prize, 
and found the Coromandel instead. You then said our 
old hulk was a dearer prize. 0 Philip, in this hour of 
your glory, do you remember me ? ” 

The excited girl found her eyes filling so fast with joy- 
ful tears, that her spy-glass became useless again, and she 
sat down to await the approaching boat. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


EXIT AND ENTRANCE. 

W HILE yet tlie oar-blades glittered afar-off, Barbara 
bethought herself to announce to her mother in 
the cabin the boat’s approach. 

The agitated maid, hastening from her station at the 
ship’s bow, passed the spot where Beaver was killed. He 
was no longer lying there. Dr. Vail had given him the 
burial of a true sailor — in the sea. 

“0 Beaver!” exclaimed his mourning mistress, “you 
used to run all over this deck — your feet went pattering 
everywhere. How I miss you ! I intended to show you 
to all the people, and say to them, ‘ This is Beaver my dog 
— the brave dog that . saved my life ! ’ 0 Beaver ! I could 
not save yours! ” 

“My dear daughter,” said the invalid Mrs. Vail, “even , 
the strong are shaken by these excitements. Lucy herself 
is prostrated, and has gone to your room. She has suf- 
fered as much from the battle as if she had received a 
wound in it.” 

Barbara would have pursued Lucy to her hiding-place, 
had not Dr. Vail’s distant yet ringing voice now come 
sounding from his boat into the ship’s cabin. 

“ Ship ahoy ! ” cried he, as he came alongside the Coro- 
mandel. 

Scarborough threw a rope to Dr. Vail’s boat and scru- 
tinized the prisoners on board. 


449 


450 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ Halive or dead ? ” inquired Scaw. 

“ One is nearly dead,” replied Vail, “ and the other is 
trying to kill himself.” 

Capt. Chantilly’s two captives were Lane and Cammeyer. 

Lane was lying in the bottom of the boat in total un- 
consciousness, haying been rescued in the last stage of 
drowning, his eyes now closed, and his body showing no 
other sign of life than just sufficient to indicate the vital 
breath. 

Cammeyer, who seemed hardly more alive, except that 
his eyes were open, was tightly held in the grip of Robson, 
from whom he had made previous struggles to escape, 
resulting in his present exhaustion. 

“ What a precious pair o’ willains !” cried Scaw, “but — 
look out there ! — don’t let ’em fall — sick men must be 
’andled with care. Demmit, Robson, don’t scratch or 
bruise that wilted white flesh.” 

Capt. Scaw’s hard tongue and soft heart were always 
giving each other the lie. 

Dr. Yail and Capt. Chantilly now lifted Lane ; whom 
Scarborough, bending down, received and drew up care- 
fully to the deck. 

“Lie there, you Hay-One scoundrel,” cried the old 
man, as he stretched the limp and unconscious body 
gently on the deck. “ Holiver, this scamp swore a haffi- 
davy, he did, that he saw his ship sink, he did. That 
haffidavy stands kerrect — hall but the name o’ the said 
sunken wessel. 1 say, Holiver, mebbe it would ’elp him to 
die heasier jist to ’ave that haffidavy kerrected and the 
right name put in. — Wait a minute, Robson, till I cover 
his face from the sun. There ! ” 

The violent and benevolent Scaw accompanied these 
words by taking off his gigantic blue flannel- jacket and 
gently spreading it over the pallid face of a man whose 
name he had sworn at every day for seventeen years. 


EXIT AND ENTRANCE. 


451 


“Cammeyer, desist from your struggles,” said Capt. 
Chantilly ; “ you renew them at the risk of your life.” 

Cammeyer had just regained a little strength and flung 
it away again in another effort to leap overboard. So 
great a weakness immediately followed in his limbs that a 
sick child would have been stronger. He made no resist- 
ance. He spoke no word. He looked utterly abject, ex- 
cept that a wild brightness glittered in his gray eyes. 

“ Bring both men down into the cabin at once,” said Dr. 
Yail, who instantly went forward to prepare the way. 

Bobson and Carter then took up Lane, like a dead body. 

Scarborough and Chantilly at the same time assisted 
Cammeyer, who now rallied strength enough to walk be- 
tween them. 

“ Mary,” said Dr. Yail to his tender-hearted wife, “ this 
is Capt. Lane — he is nearly dead from drowning — there’s 
no time to be lost.” 

Mrs. Yail, who had just emerged from her state-room, 
was so shocked at the deathly look of the drowned man, 
that she exclaimed, 

“ 0 bring him at once into this room — quick ! — put him 
on the bed.” 

Thus it happened that Capt. Lane, helpless as one dead, 
was brought to be nursed back into life by Mary Yail in 
the self-same room in which he had once basely loft that 
gentle woman to die. 

“ Take Cammeyer to Ho. 1,” said Rodney, pointing to 
the D’Arblay room. 

The two men who had plotted to capture the Coroman- 
del were now the old ship’s prisoners. 

Capt. Chantilly, leaving them under Dr. Yail’s care, 
promptly returned with Robson and Carter to the Tama- 
qua ; — which had now closely approached the Coroman- 
del, and was attempting to attach a hawser to her as the 
Good Hope had done. 


452 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“Will Capt. Lane revive ?” whispered Barbara to her 
father. 

“Yes, he has no bruise — no wound; but he was long 
under water ; he will rally very slowly. Cammeyer is in 
more danger than Lane. ” 

“What, in danger of dying ?” asked Barbara. 

“Yes,” responded the physician ; “ Cammeyer is deliri- 
ous, and in the present weakness of his body he cannot 
bear this ominous fever in his brain.” 

It was with a revived professional pride that Dr. Vail 
found himself resuming his function as a physician ; and 
it was with a still more profound satisfaction — such as is 
known only to lofty natures — that he stood over the bed- 
side of Capt. Lane, seeking the safety of the man who had 
left him to destruction. There are few pleasures in life 
greater than recompensing evil with good. 

The women — except Lucy, who still imprisoned herself 
in Barbara’s room — were ceaseless in their ministrations 
to Lane ; — chafing his hands, holding restoratives to his 
nostrils, .and watching his pulse ; — showing altogether an 
assiduity which Capt. Scaw violently denounced and hear- 
tily approved. 

“ Demmit,” he cried, “this pirate hought to be stran- 
gled ; — there, let me rub his feet.” 

Old Scaw felt that Lane had taken an unfair advantage 
of him by being in distress ; and the vengeful curmudgeon 
secretly determined that the wrath which he could not 
visit on Lane should be wreaked on Lane’s master. Sir 
Bichard Wilkinson. 

Lieut. Cammeyer sighed', groaned, and tossed about in 
a feverish sleep. 

Dr. Vail noted the motions of his face, consisting of 
strange expressions, coming, going, and constantly chang- 
ing. Some were pitiful appeals — others, angry frowns. 
The prostrate man seemed personating two characters at 


EXIT AX’D ENTRANCE. 


453 


once — one soliciting something which the other was deny- 
ing. 

“ The best medicine for his wayward brain,” thought 
the physician, “ would he sleep— real sleep — if he could 
get it ; hut this excited sleep has no rest in it.” 

Cammeyer’s frame was relaxed, hut his mind was chorded 
to an extreme pitch. His vital forces, as they left his 
limbs, appeared to withdraw into his brain, rendering his 
faculties preternaturally active. His fine, manly body, 
having been violently heated with fever, lay like a fagot 
burning away in its own fire. 

He smiled and scowled — he gnashed his teeth — he bit 
his lips. 

At intervals, he kept stretching forth his right hand as 
if offering a gift to some imaginary person standing by ; 
— a gift apparently of flowers, for he frequently ejaculated 
the word — 

“ Violets ! ” 

A ringing cheer now filled the vault of heaven — sent up 
from the Tamaqua’s crew on successfully hitching the 
hawser to the Coromandel and taking hei* in tow. 

Barbara, whose blood tingled at this animating sound, 
(ior what is so cheery as a cheer ?) started to run up 
stairs, but was intercepted by Lucy, who now for the first 
time opened her room-door. 

She beckoned Barbara to enter. 

“My dear sister,” asked Lucy, with great agitation, 
“ is Lieut. Cammeyer dead ? ” 

“No, Lucy, but he is worse than dead, he is out of his 
wits. His mind is running wild. A little while ago he 
picked his watch to pieces — twisted the hands together 
like a fly’s legs — held them up between his thumb and 
forefinger — and said, ‘Take these violets ’—offering them 
to somebody whom he fancied standing at the foot of the 
bed.” 


454 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“ My sweet Barbara,” said Lucy, pale as death, “ I am 
rested now — I will take your place as Lieut. Cammeyer’s 
nurse. Tell your father that I was at Scutari — I have 
heard men groan, and seen them die. 0 it is a mournful 
world, and its chief need is mercy ! ” 

Lucy Wilmerding proposed to show mercy to Anthony 
Cammeyer. 

“Miss Wilmerding,” inquired Dr. Vail, eagerly, “have 
you ever nursed a madman ? Cammeyer is crazed. He 
has been holding the state-room lamp in his hands, think- 
ing it lighted, and trying to blow it out. In spite of the 
sunshine that streams into his window, he says it is now 
midnight. He has just called for some absent person by 
the name of Lucette, and wants to give her some imaginary 
violets.” 

Lucy made no reply, but entered the sick man’s cham- 
ber. 

The Coromandel, as soon as she was in tow of the swift 
Tamaqua, began to sheer to right and left ; so Capt. 
Chantilly sent a boat with several men to see if the old 
ship’s rusty rudder could be turned in its bed and made 
to steer the wayward hulk. 

Among these men was the negro, Peter Collins, assist- 
ant gunner’s mate. 

Jezebel, who happened to observe through a cabin- 
window this one dusky face among a boat’s crew of 
sunburnt Caucasians, said to herself with glad surprise, 

“ Wall, I declar ! Dat’s a cullud man ! Didn’t know 
dere was any more o’ dat kind left — s’posed de white folks 
had cuffed and jostled and banged ’em all out o’ dis 
world by dis time. Dat looks like ole Bruno afore he 
took to drink. What’s de good book say ? ‘I am de rose 
ob Sharon and de lily ob de walley.’ ” 

Jezebel had been so intent in watching this “ black but 


EXIT A XD ENTRANCE. 


455 


comely” face, that she did not discover in the boat’s stern 
the young naval officer who ranked on the Tamaqua 
second to Capt. Chantilly. 

Barbara now heard, first the tramping of many heavy 
feet across the deck, and then the creaking of one man’s 
lithe footsteps flying down the cabin stairs. 

“Who comes ?” she eagerly cried — her heart beating 
in expectancy. 

“It is I, Jason, seeking the golden fleece,” responded 
Philip Chantilly, “ and I find it here.” 

Saying which, Philip audaciously plunged his right 
hand into Barbara’s tresses, and immediately afterward, 
outstretching both his eager arms, clasped her wildly to 
his breast — kissing her on her brow, her cheeks, and her 
lips in a passion of love. 

Jezebel, who was starting to go upstairs, found herself 
an accidental intruder on this scene. 

“Lawks a-massy!” cried the astonished dame. “Is 
dis what dey do in war ? Guess de war is ober. What’s 
de good book say ? ‘ Mercy and truf shall meet togedder, 

and righteousness and peace shall kiss each odder.’ ” 

“Barbara,” said Philip suddenly, “is that traitor Cam- 
meyer alive or dead ? My father told me of his treason 
to the ship, and his treason to you ! The dastard ! Had 
I suspected his villainy, I would have flung him back into 
the sea !— I would have held down his cowardly head 
under the water till I had seen him choke — strangle — 
thrice drown — and go ten times to death ! The wretch ! ” 
And Philip clenched his hands, and quivered with wrath. 

At this moment a loud cry was heard on deck. 

“ Hark ! ” exclaimed Barbara, “that is Jezebel’s voice. 
Only a moment ago she was here in the cabin. What can 
have happened to her ? ” 

Barbara ran to the deck, Philip following. 


456 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


There are some tones of the human voice so seldom 
heard, and full of such unusual emotion, that it is im- 
possible to tell at first whether they indicate despair, grief 
or joy. 

Jezebel’s cry was one of these ; and Barbara interpreted 
it as full of pain and woe. 

But this interpretation was ludicrously wrong ; for at 
the next moment Barbara and Philip discovered Jezebel 
standing in a picturesque and dramatic attitude, clasping 
her heavy arms round a young black man, and hugging 
him to her breast. 

“Is that you, Peter Collins?” inquired Philip, “and 
do you know this woman ? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” replied the assistant gunner’s mate, who still 
remained a captive in the solid arms of the ancient sibyl. 
“ She is my mother, sir.” 

“ 0 wonderful ! ” cried Barbara. “ Dear Bel, is it true ? 
Tell me — speak ! ” 

Jezebel made no reply, but stood holding Peter Collins 
in a close prison, from which (unlike the more yielding 
dungeon of the original Peter for whom he was named) 
there was no deliverance. 

“Dear Aunt Bel,” urged the impatient Barbara, “tell 
me the truth ! ” 

“’Sh!” muttered Bel, softly. 

“ Dear Bel,” cried Barbara, “ I shall not hush — tell me.” 

“ ’Sh ! ’Sh ! ” murmured Bel. 

“No,” demanded Barbara ; “speak, I say.” 

“Hush, my chillen,” replied Bel, in a low but manda- 
tory tone. “Don’t be a makin’ sich a worldly noise — de 
Lord is tryin’ to say somefin’. Don’t you hear him ? I 
hab been axin’ de Lord if dis yer is Pete — de real Pete — 
my boy Pete. And 0 blessed answer ! — hark ! What’s de 
good book say ? ‘ Woman, behold dy son ! ’ ” 

The aged mother, with renewed conviction, and with 


EXIT AND ENTRANCE. 


457 


revived affection, now locked her son still more closely in 
her gigantic arms. 

“Your true name is Bamley,” observed Philip; “how- 
then came it to be Collins ? ” 

“Because,” retorted that young man, “ de Bamleys, on 
de men’s side, was a mis’able set. Bruno Bamley — dat was 
de ole man — he nebber earned a cent for de folks. Dat 
gib him a oad name. Now a bad name’s ’nutf to sink a 
frigate. Dat’s way I changed from Bamley to Collins.” 

Capt. Scaw, who overheard this colloquy while assisting 
the men at the rudder, now ran forward on his ponderous 
tip- toes — caught hold of Jezebel’s hands — and compelled 
her to dance a few steps on deck ; — a caper in which Scaw 
did all the capering, while Jezebel knew not whether to 
be angry or pleased. 

“Well done, Mrs. Bamley,” cried her aged partner in 
the dance, who now handed her back in triumph to her 
son. 

“Don’t Bamley me,” cried Bel, with huffy emphasis. 
“ I aint no Bamley no more. Didden you hear what Pete 
said ? Now, what am de sense ob an ole woman like me a 
stayin’ named after a lazy-bones of a husband who is dead 
and gone, and who never did nullin’ for his folks, — when 
I hab got a son like Pete. Ole Bel is agwine to be named 
after dis yer boy, she is ! Let me hear no more Bamleyin’ 
ob me in dis world. Dis ole woman am Mrs. Peter Collins. 
What’s de good book say ? * And de Lord shall write a 
new name on deir forrid ! ’ ” 

After Bel had been congratulated on her re-union with 
her long-parted Pete, Lieut. Chantilly, who had not yet 
seen either Mrs. Yail, or Bodney, or Lucy, now returned 
to the cabin and received the greetings of all. 

He then inquired after the condition of Lane and Cam- 
meyer. 


458 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


“Capt. Lane is in my room,” said Mrs. Vail; “come 
with me. He is not conscious — the noise of talking will 
not disturb him.” 

Philip took a seat at Lane’s bed-side, reflecting that the 
very ship which that captain had abandoned at sea was 
now conveying her deserter to land. 

Mrs. Vail and Philip talked tenderly about Rosa and the 
early days. 

“My dear Philip,” said she, purposely giving the con- 
versation a sudden turn, “you told me you had a sacred 
feeling for the room in which you were born.” 

“Yes,” said he, “every son owes that tribute to his 
mother.” 

“ In this room,” continued Mary, “ my daughter Bar- 
bara was born.” 

Philip rose, and bowed as in a sanctuary. 

“Philip, did you not tell me, on the island, that Bar- 
bara had dwelt in vour thoughts for years and years ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Now that you have seen her, does she look like the 
image you had formed of her ? ” 

“No, she is far lovelier.” 

“ How well do you love her ? ” 

“Better than life itself.” 

“Will you be faithful to her always ? ” 

“Forever and ever.” 

“ My dear motherless boy, when my tiny Barbara was 
only three days old, lying in my arms in this room, and 
when I thought the Coromandel had arrived at Cape Town, 
I sent word to your mother to bring you on board. You 
were then a child of seven years. I meant to say to her, 
f Rosa, let us train up these children to love one another, 
and to live their lives together.’ That was an expectation 
which I long ago thought heaven had forever thwarted. 
But no — heaven has never thwarted me in anything. 


EXIT AND ENTKANCE. 


459 


Philip, my son, my only son, as I gave Barbara to yon so 
long, long ago, — I ought to say to you now — that — that — 
I do not need to give her to you again. ” 

Philip knelt and kissed Mrs. Vail’s hand. 

His heart was full of reverence toward two mothers at 
the same moment ; one on earth, the other in heaven. 

Then at a turn in the talk he remarked, 

“ I have brought you a packet of souvenirs of my dead 
mother.” And he took from his pocket a red morocco 
case. “ Here is a lock of her hair ; and here is the letter 
from Lucy Wilmerding which my mother saved for you 
and which I promised to bring. Look at the post-mark. 
It is dated August 16, 1847.” 

“ Philip,” said Mrs. Vail, “ our dear Barbara is so fond 
of opening letters that I will give her the pleasure of 
breaking this seal. She has gone up stairs — you may take 
her the letter at once.” 

Philip, putting it into his pocket, went to the deck. 

Barbara was standing at the bow, watching the cloven 
waters — a sight which she never saw before ; for during 
all the years of the girl’s sea-faring life, the Coromandel 
had drifted at a snail’s pace ; but the old ship was now 
going at a fine speed in a compulsory pursuit of the power- 
ful gunboat, whose wheel was floundering and splashing at 
a rope’s length beyond the Coromandel’s plunging prow. 

“0 Philip,” exclaimed Barbara, “come and look at the 
sparkling water as it dashes up. How fast we go ! The 
dear old ship leaps like a dolphin.” 

Philip, clasping Barbara’s hand, looked not at the foam- 
ing waves, but at the maiden’s blushing face. 

“0 Barbara,” said he, “heaven knows that I am not 
worthy of you — no man on this poor globe could be ; but 
I love you as I love Cod ; and by this love emboldened, 
which aspires beyond its desert,” — (and here his voice 
quivered), “0 fair maid of the sea” — (and here they 


460 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


both trembled), “ I offer you a sailor’s heart, whose future 
happiness in the wide world that lies before us will depend 
on your answer to one question : — Barbara, will you be 
my wife ? ” 

She gave to her lover the one look which a maiden gives 
to but one man once in her lifetime, and exclaimed, 

“ 0 Philip — my husband ! ” 

Having said these few words — which seemed to Barbara 
wholly inadequate, yet which Philip accepted as quite suf- 
ficient — she wept and smiled. 

Many low whispers then passed between the two lovers, 
which the wind caught up and diffused like a flowery 
sweetness through the earth ; — just as the breath of true 
love is the chief perfume of heaven itself. 

“Look, Barbara,” said Philip, “the sun is about to 
take with him his last message to the other side of the 
world. Do you know what he will sav after he goes 
down?” 

“ What ? ” asked Barbara. 

“ He will say,” replied the dear maid’s lover, “ that the 
last thing he saw on this happy day was the happiest 
sailor who ever sailed the sea.” 

“ Philip,” said she, “ I have been a sailor longer than 
you — I have been a sailor all my life. So let me tell you 
what the sun is already saying before he goes down — and 
see ! he grows all the brighter while he says it. He is 
saying, f That’s the dear old Coromandel. Of all the fleets 
and navies in the world, I know that old wreck the best. 
There used to be a little brown girl on her deck, who 
laughed every night and morning in my face ; — and when- 
ever I was hidden by clouds, the first eyes that watched 
for my return were that same little maid’s ; — and when- 
ever the pelting rains wet her fat cheeks, it was I that 
came out to dry them for her. I have known many chil- 
dren in my time, but never one that kept me company so 


EXIT AKD ENTRANCE. 


461 


many hours of the day, or so many days of the year, as 
that same child. At last I missed her from the sea, and 
saw her hiding away in a green island. There her true 
lover found her, and he has brought her back again out 
upon the same old ocean — and here she is, rocking and 
lolling in the same old ship ! ’ Yes, Philip, that is what 
the sun is now saying. — But 0 why does heaven permit 
such happiness to me when it ordains such sorrow to 
Lucy ? ” 

At this allusion Philip handed to Barbara the letter 
which Lucy had written from London seventeen years be- 
fore. Barbara opened it with eager pleasure, reading it 
to herself with profound astonishment at the following 
passages : 

Perhaps I did not mention in my last that while we were in Berlin 
(where we lived for seven months) a young American gentleman was 
very attentive to papa and me. . . My papa’s young friend is to 

be first a midshipman, and by and by an admiral. He is tall and 
splendid, and his name is Anthony Cammeyer. . . How would 

that name sound for a lady ? I don’t mean now. 0 dear no — a long 
way off in the future. (Please keep this a great secret.) . . To- 

day is my sixteenth birthday. The English violet that I enclose is 
one from a beautiful bunch which Anthony brought me this 
morning. 

“Philip,” exclaimed Barbara, after having silently read 
the letter, “ I must go to Lucy at once.” 

Whereupon, without stopping to make any explanation 
but showing great distress in her face, Barbara fled away 
toward the cabin ; leaving Philip first to wonder at, and 
then to follow her. 

As the perplexed young man knew neither the contents 
of the letter, nor the facts which the letter narrated, his 
curiosity was sharpened to a feather-edge. 

Lucy Wilmerding had meanwhile been in attendance on 


462 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Anthony Cammeyer, who rapidly grew weaker in body and 
wilder in mind. 

“ 0 Lucy, dear Lucy ! ” exclaimed Barbara, running to 
her where she sat by the Leaning Tower, within a few 
steps of the sick man’s door. “I know at last the secret 
of your grief. Here is the letter you wrote to my mother 
at Cape Town before I was born. I have just read it, and 
in it you say ” 

“ Silence ! ” ejaculated Lucy, turning deathly pale, and 
speaking with a tone of command that fell with less mys- 
tery on Barbara than on all the rest. “ Dear Barbara,” 
added Lucy, trying to recover herself, “ Lieut. Cammeyer 
has been quiet for the last half hour, but loud voices will 
disturb his rest.” 

This was a poor subterfuge on Lucy’s part to secure 
Barbara’s silence ; and it was only partially effectual with 
that irrepressible maiden ; who now flung her arms round 
her sorrowing companion, and exclaimed, 

“O angel of mercy! Agatha! Lucy! Sister! sweet 
dear heart ! ” 

This passionate exclamation by Barbara was an unac- 
countable enigma, both to Philip and her parents. 

But they had no time to solve the riddle ; for at that 
moment they heard a loud noise in Cammeyer’s room, 
sounding like the wrenching of the brass window-frame 
from its hinges. 

The deranged man immediately opened the door, and 
came forth with a glaring and excited look, brandishing 
the brazen rim in his hand, stalking up and down the 
cabin, and talking to himself — apparently oblivious of the 
presence of others. 

“ 0 pitiful ! ” cried Lucy, burying her face in her hands. 

Barbara flung herself down at Lucy’s side. 

“What is all this mystery ?” thought Dr. Vail, notic- 
ing Lucy’s distress. 


EXIT AND ENTRANCE. 


463 


Cammeyer scrutinized the brass rim, and put it on and 
off his neck several times, like a collar. After which, 
thrusting his arm into it, he exclaimed, 

“ It is hot ! — it will burn you ! — it boils ! — take your 
arm out ! ” And Barbara knew that his mind was revert- 
ing to the boiling spring. 

He dropped the heavy circlet, which grazed against his 
foot, and he exclaimed, 

“ A scorpion ! — a mortal wound — I am a dead man ! 99 

He then seemed picking his way agonizingly among 
multitudinous serpents which were biting him at every 
turn, and when this fancy grew insupportable he fell at 
Lucy’s feet. 

Lifting himself partly up, his vagrant mind wandered 
into another mood, and he whispered, 

“ Yes, what pretty vines — they hide the name — here it 
is — Good Hope.” 

This hallucination soon led him to believe himself on 
board the real Good Hope, bargaining with Lane ; and he 
rose to his feet and stood leering at the mizzen-mast as if 
he were face to face with his fellow-conspirator. 

The expression on his countenance now changed into 
one horrible to behold, for with glaring eyes he gazed 
down at his two open hands, which he suddenly clenched, 
and he enacted before Lucy and Barbara the r61e 
of strangling them both, calling them by their names, 
and gloating over their apparent murder with fiendish 
delight. 

“ Seize him,” said Dr. Tail to Philip, who was standing 
just behind Cammeyer ; and Philip dexterously closed his 
strong arms round the frenzied man. 

“He has no strength,” said Philip, surprised at the ex- 
haustion which had overcome the poor demented wretch. 

Cammeyer’s face was toward one of the cabin-windows 
at the stern, and as he stood bound in Philip’s arms, he 


464 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


gazed through the thick glass out upon the sea, beckoning 
as if he saw some one approach. 

“ Lucette ! ” muttered the sick man, in a pitiful and 
plaintive tone — “ Lucette ! ” and he kept calling her 
name oyer and oyer again — his voice sinking gradually to 
a mild whisper — “ Lucette ! ” 

Dr. Vail now resorted to a physician’s stratagem, and 
beckoning Barbara, said to her with a loud and command- 
ing voice, 

“ My dear Lucette, here is Lieut. Cammeyer, who 
wishes to see you. Will you speak to him ? He is wait- 
ing.” 

Cammeyer’s attention was roused by the forceful utter- 
ance of these words, and as Barbara, in obedience to her 
father’s suggestion, stepped forth to salute the bewildered 
man, he eyed her with an intense look. 

“Mr. Cammeyer,” she asked, “do you know me ? Am 
I not Lucette ? ” 

“No,” he exclaimed, with a sudden and vacant laugh 
— half of anger, half of ridicule : “ No — ha ! ha ! — no ! 
Lucette has black eyes. She is sixteen. It is her birth- 
day. I have brought her some violets. Where is she ? 
Call her. Lucette ! — Lucette ! — Lucette ! ” And he 
breathed forth her name as softly as if his memory of it 
were sweetened by the violets with which he was now 
associating it. 

Cammeyer, on showing thus a melted mood, was allowed 
his freedom from Philip’s grasp. 

Lucy continued to sit with her face buried in her hands. 

“He is tottering,” said Philip — “catch him or he will 
fall.” 

No sooner had these words escaped Philip’s lips, than 
Cammeyer fainted and fell to the floor. 

Such a pallor instantly passed over his countenance that 
Lucy, beholding the change, could no longer disguise her 


EXIT AND ENTRANCE. 


465 


grief, but bent down beside him and lifted his head into 
her lap. 

The last rays of the sun were now streaming in through 
both windows at the stern. 

The light fell on Cammeyer’s haggard face, and lent to 
it a flush of life. This transformation made him appear to 
Lucy as he did in his youth. She wept bitterly. 

The crazed man, whose eyes had been closed, now opened 
them, and fixed their gaze on the dead geranium in the 
terra-cotta vase. His dull orbs brightened at the sight. 
He pointed his forefinger to the dead plant and smiled. 

Lucy, not knowing what he was pointing at, turned her 
head to ascertain. By this movement, her face received 
the level sunbeams full against it. Cammeyer caught a 
glimpse of that lovely, mournful countenance. He recog- 
nized, not Lucy but Lucette. Smiles played about his feat- 
ures, and made him appear full of pleasure and peace. 

“Yes, sixteen,” said he. “You shall have them — I 
promised to bring them. Wait.” 

Summoning his feeble strength, he staggered to the 
flower- vase — plucked up the dead stalk by the roots — 
brought it back — and offered it to Lucy, who had now 
risen and was standing before him. 

“Violets !” said he. “They are for your hair. Take 
them ! ” 

She took the dead stalk, and in so doing, her hand 
touched his ; and she found his flesh so cold and deathly 
that she started back. 

A corresponding shock passed at the same moment 
through the trembling man, and stunned him into sanity. 

Calling then into his wayward brain the little life that 
remained in his fainting body, he stood erect during a few 
lucid moments, and evidently recognized the real, mature, 
and heart-broken woman whom he was confronting for the 
last time in his life. 


466 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Overwhelmed by the spectacle, he gave her one long look 
of hopelessness and anguish — lifted his hands into the air 
like a drowning man when there is no help — sobbed out a 
strong sigh-«-struggled to speak, but was unable — and at 
last shrieked forth with piteous pathos the single word — 

“ Lucy ! ” 

While the echo of Oammeyer’s agonizing voice was ring- 
ing in all ears, he reeled — clutched at the air with empty 
hands — fell to the floor — and was dead ! 

A strange Nemesis had literally burst his heart : — as if 
Nature had taken revenge on him for breaking the heart 
of another. 

Lucy sank down on the dead body, and with a saint’s 
anguish moaned forth a speechless prayer for the safe 
passage of the departed soul. 

Night stealthily fell on the sea — darkness crept into the 
ship — dumbness reigned on all tongues. 

In the solemn hush, the beating of the Tamaqua’s 
powerful wheel was plainly heard in the Coromanders 
cabin ; and the rushing waters at the old hulk’s bow grew 
louder than ever — as if the inanimate craft had caught 
the expiring life of her dead passenger, and had thereby 
quickened her plunge from wave to wave in her eager 
way back to the world. 

At length the evening lamp was lighted, and as it shone 
down on the solid mahogany table beneath — that was now 
transformed into a bier — the dim rays revealed the figure 
of a dead man lying in state, clothed in a uniform he had 
dishonored, covered with a flag he had betrayed, and 
watched by a woman he had wronged. 

A few flowers that Barbara had brought with her from 
the island — already wilted, yet still fragant — were lying on 
his breast. In the midst of them was a dried and shriveled 
geranium-stalk, placed there by Lucy, whose own blighted 
life was equally seared. Amid the dying blossoms, the 


EXIT AND ENTRANCE. 


467 


ominous herb seemed the fittest funeral-flower with which 
the dead could bury the dead. 

Then came the midnight and found the two maidens 
sitting clasped in each other’s arms, marveling at each 
other’s fate : — one, after long exile from human society, 
eagerly entering it — -the other, after long sorrow in it, 
solemnly quitting it ; one going to her heart’s bridal — the 
other, to her heart’s burial ; one seeking to open the world’s 
great gate before her — the other, to close it behind her 
forever. 

‘ ‘ 0 Lucy ! Lucy ! Lucy ! ” sobbed Barbara, weeping 
tears of sympathy. 

“ No, my sweet Barbara, call me by that name no more. 
Lucy is dead. It is Agatha only who survives. Call me 
Agatha — your sister Agatha.” 

Then these maidens, unclasping each other’s arms, 
turned each to her lover— each to her own heart’s idol ; 
and to their maidenly eyes the two manly forms now 
looked more beautiful than ever : — one glowing with the 
radiance of life — the other shadowed by the majesty of 
death. 

Love seeks for love. But, seek as it may, love knows 
not what it shall find : it may be happiness — it may be 
heart-break. Barbara had found the one ; Lucy, the 
other. They had loved with equal faithfulness, but with 
unequal recompense. 0 the merciless fickleness of that 
undivine providence which men call fate ! 

Nay, fate too can be just : for Philip and Anthony— one 
a true lover, and the other a false— had each reaped as he 
had sown, and gathered as he had strown. 

The sisterly maids, in holy rivalry, vied with one another 
in bestowing each on her lover, according to his desert, 
one of the two greatest gifts which women can borrow from 
God to confer on men : 

One gave love — the other, pardon. 


468 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 

Both gifts are of equal preciousness, and to both givers 
belong equal praise. 

All night long the Coromandel — the cradle of one love, 
the sepulchre of another; — all night long, the good old 
ship — bearing her strange burden of life and death, of 
hope and despair, of faith and treachery, of honor and 
ignominy — holding thus within her narrow walls all the 
elements of the great world to which she was bound ; — all 
night long, amid the noise of the beating wheel — with 
which the beating of all hearts kept company, save one 
that could beat no more — the hoary hulk pursued her final 
voyage, through the darkness of night and the shadow of 
death, toward the golden morning and the living world. 


EPILOGUE. 


EFORE daybreak on Saturday, September 24, 1864 ; 



LI — while the birds of Barbados were yet in their 
nests asleep, and while the beacon-lights of St. Anne’s 
Castle and Needham’s Point were still ablaze ; — the Coro- 
mandel, after the longest voyage that any vessel ever made 
— except the endless wanderings of sunken wrecks that 
drift about the bottom of the sea — entered at last one of 
the world’s ports, dropped her anchor, and waited for 


day. 


It was slow in dawning ; for human wishes cannot hasten 
the sun. 

Meanwhile a thick sea-fog floated over the anxious 
watchers on deck — like the mystic future that overhung 
their lives. 

The Tamaqua was moored near by. 

Numerous vessels lay in the channel — some of com- 
merce, others of war ; among which the Coromandel had 
come to pursue neither the greeds of men nor the hatreds 
of nations ; for her consecrated hulk, having already the 
sick and the dead on board, was to remain a Marine Hospi- 
tal — to be put in holy commission as Agatha’s flag-ship of 
the Sisters of Mercy. 

The first echo from the shore was the dismal howling of 
a dog — reminding the exiles how the aged Beaver, like 
the archetypal patriarch who was forbidden to enter the 
promised land, had died without the sight. 


469 


470 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


Oliver Chantilly, eager to be the first human being to 
welcome Rodney Vail to the world, pushed off in the 
darkness from the Tamaqua and boarded the Coroman- 
del : on whose ancient deck the two friends stood lock- 
ed in a long embrace — in token of a friendship which 
had kept its faith, fulfilled its duty, and achieved its 
reward. 

Old John Scarborough, otherwise Scawberry, otherwise 
Scaw, was unable to wait quietly for dawn, but burst out 
into alternate joy and rage ; roaring forth jubilant con- 
gratulations to Rodney and Oliver, and doubling his mam- 
moth fist in rehearsal of the gestures with which he meant 
to browbeat Sir Richard Wilkinson a few hours later. 

Jezebel, as soon as she heard the rattling anchor, hob- 
bled up stairs and put her arms about the assistant gun- 
ner’s mate : — piously reconciling herself to re-enter the 
wicked world, since it offered her a career as Mrs. Peter 
Collins, mother of her son. 

Mary Vail was hardly yet aware of the ship’s arrival, but 
continued ministering to Capt. Lane ; — who was just 
then murmuring a broken utterance of his gratitude to 
that gentle woman for nursing him back to life in the 
room in which he had left her to die. 

Lucy Wilmerding sat watching the bier of Anthony 
Cammeyer — gazing at the closed lids to which the ex- 
pected dawn could bring no light. Out of the stiff, stark, 
comely body, the soul — which had been its only base ele- 
ment — had now departed, leaving the mortal remainder 
stainless and pure. That which life had marred, death 
had perfected. At last, with woman’s love, that faileth 
not, the maidenly mourner knelt beside the flower-strewn 
form, wedded it for her own, and clasped it in her arms 
as a vain possession, — a prostrate worshipper, bending to 
a more prostrate idol, her own broken hope the most pros- 
trate of all. 


EPILOGUE. 


471 


Philip and Barbara stood side by side in the ship’s bow 
— the place of their betrothal — searching the dark east 
for its first flush. 

Never did any bridegroom bring to his bride such a 
bridal-gift as Philip had in store for Barbara ; for he was 
about to give her the whole world. 

Into the fair maid’s eyes came mists to meet the sea’s 
mist ; yet her tears were not of joy for the gift, but of 
love for the giver ; for she who had yearned all her life- 
time to possess the world, now at last, when she was to 
receive it, saw it shrink into nothingness in comparison 
with that true love which is the supreme fortune of the 
soul. 

At length came the wished-for morning — cool, blue, 
and beautiful. 

It brought with it the singing of birds, the firing of 
salutes, the waving of flags, and the cheering of crews. 

In the midst of these tokens, the exiles — whose arrival 
had been noised about the harbor before they left the 
ship — now embarked in a boat and began to glide shore- 
ward for a triumphal entry into the civilized world. 

Before them was the tumult of their welcome, — with 
its joys, hopes, wonders, glories, friends, home. 

Behind them was the ship of their wanderings, — fringed 
wdth sea-grass, green as the destined memory of her name ; 
lying in her new harbor quietly as in the Calms of Capri- 
corn — safely as in the cove of cocoa-trees — sacredly as if 
already moored within the hallowed shadow of the House 
of Mercy. 

The company stood lingering in the boat in order to 
waft a prolonged and affectionate farewell to the ship ; gaz- 
ing at her until she seemed to swim in the tears that filled 
their fond eyes ; waving to her their hands like a flock of 
flying birds ; — Barbara’s fair hand fluttering among them 
— whitest of all — like a dove’s white wing. 


472 


TEMPEST-TOSSED. 


\ 


At last the exiles turned from the ship to the shore ; 
— carrying into the world the pleasant thought that what- 
ever storms might gather about their own future fate, 
the dear old ship, though remaining a refuge for the 
weather-beaten, was herself nevermore to be Tempest- 
Tossed. 


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